The Cumbre Vieja eruption is as alive as on the first day, almost a month after it started. The volcano's lava overflowed this afternoon from the main cone, as can be seen in the video released by the Canary Islands Volcanological Institute.

Cumbre Vieja volcano is once again spewing out smoke and lava after several hours of apparent seismic inactivity, which had given the islanders hope of a truce after a week of violent eruption. Now uncertainty is returning to La Palma, especially to Fuencaliente, on the south of the island, where at least 16 earthquakes have been detected. The eruption had stopped emitting pyroclastic material for two hours and although the Institute of Geoscience confirmed a "remarkable reduction" in seismic activity, geologists also called for caution and avoided being triumphalist after the sudden seismic stop. "We have to be very vigilant because the scenario can change quickly. It could be that the flow [of lava] has gone down; or it could continue, albeit with less quantity, in which case it could increase again," the Institute stressed, and argued that there are "few guarantees" that this stop is definitive.

The eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary island of La Palma continues to increase in intensity. After the volcano entered a more explosive phase yesterday and two new eruptive vents were opened, very close to each other, this Saturday another new vent has opened, located to the west of the main one, according to the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan). In addition, early this afternoon, the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain added that the volcano's cone has broken and left a new "enormous" flow - in the words of geologist Carlos Lorenzo - which is advancing towards the sea.

If you are very involved in social networks, surely these days you have started to see maps of sulfur dioxide dispersion (SO₂), animations that draw the possible movement of gas emissions from the La Palma volcano to the Peninsula. To what extent will it be possible to perceive the SO₂ of the eruption in Catalonia? At this stage there is no indication that it will be perceptible for the population. Although the wind dynamics will indeed be part of this sulphur dioxide flow towards the Peninsula, on the way it will be dispersed and will arrive in a much lower concentration than at the source. The levels of this gas will be higher in the upper layers of the atmosphere, but at the surface the increase of SO₂ may not be perceptible.

This is not Krakatoa. This is not even Mount Teide, Mount Etna or Mount Vesuvius. At Cumbre Vieja, on the island of La Palma, what we have is a volcanic edifice in the making, about which there is still more uncertainty than certainty. However, if we take into account the geological history of the island, what science says and what the models predict, it is hardly possible to speak of such a catastrophic outcome as those that have been circulating these last few days on social networks, most of them without any scientific basis. There will not be a giant tsunami that will reach New York nor a toxic cloud that will cause a nuclear winter on the European continent. The catastrophists will have to wait for another event.

The lava from the Cumbre Vieja volcano, on the island of La Palma, continues to open up towards the sea little by little and has already covered 153 hectares, which have been swallowed up by rocks, fire and ash. This is the calculation made by the Canary Islands Volcanology Institute (Involcan) based on satellite images captured by the Copernicus programme: the latest map shows the extent of the lava at 8.14 am on Tuesday. Compared to the previous one, at 7.50 p.m. on Monday, the area covered by the eruption has increased from 103 to 153 hectares, about 50%.

The lava from the cumbre Vieja volcano, on the island of La Palma, has slowed down its movement towards the sea: from advancing 700 metres per hour just after it erupted, to slowing down to 120 metres per hour on Tuesday. However, despite its slower pace, it has already entered the village of Todoque, a small municipality of about 1,200 inhabitants, which had already been evacuated due to the appearance of a new eruptive mouth. The villagers were able to enter their houses for a while to take some of their belongings: some took photos and paintings, and those who had more time loaded appliances and furniture, as the village could be wiped out by the volcano. "The lava swallowed the houses as if they were made of paper", a neighbour told Efe. So far around 165 homes have been destroyed.

Three weeks from now, if everything goes according to plan, Cumbre Vieja, on the island of La Palma, will be a new geographical feature that will barely exceed a hundred metres in height. It will be the product of the eruption that started last Sunday at around 3.18 p.m GMT and which will most probably continue to expel pyroclastic material and gases for between 1 and 2 months. As the eruption loses intensity, the lava will end up sealing the vents and the crater of the volcanic cone which will appear. We will have to wait a couple of years for the earthquakes to stop completely, and it will not be until then that the ground temperature will be back to normal and wild vegetation will begin to naturally repopulate what the rivers of lava have turned into devastation and desolation. This is the geological rhythm that repeats itself in the Canary Islands, which are of volcanic origin and where the third largest volcano in the world, the Teide, stands.

Slow but unstoppable, the lava from the volcano that has erupted on the island of La Palma is advancing towards the coast and could reach the sea this afternoon, at around 8 p.m. local time. In its path, the river of lava, about six meters high, "literally swallows" everything in its path, as explained by local officials: a hundred houses have been destroyed and the school of Los Campitos, in the municipality of El Paso, has been buried, as well as infrastructure and crops. The volcano is emitting between 6,000 and 9,000 tons of sulfur dioxide a day. So far, some 5,000 people have had to be evacuated due to the eruption on an island of some 80,000 inhabitants.