A new volcano is born in the Spanish Canary Islands

USPA NEWS - A new volcano erupted in the early afternoon of this Sunday, September 19, on the Spanish island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands archipelago. Geologists had been waiting for the volcano to emerge for weeks, when a series of more than a thousand small earthquakes - the strongest, 3.8 on the Richter scale - began to shake the island. Five municipalities near the site of the eruption are on alert and people with reduced mobility have been evacuated to safe areas.

It was shortly after 3 o'clock in the afternoon this Sunday when throughout the island of La Palma, in the Spanish archipelago of the Canaries, a loud explosion was heard and a column of ash began to rise towards the sky of the island. In a short time, five eruptive mouths were opened and the lava began to rise to the surface at the Cumbre Vieja de La Palma, an area known for finding in it a very appropriate ravine for canyoning.

According to the regional president of the Canary Islands, Angel Victor Torres, there is no record of injuries caused by the eruption of the volcano. Five nearby municipalities have been placed on alert and residents of those municipalities with reduced mobility were evacuated to safe areas and housed in pavilions set up by the Army. More than 2,000 people were evacuated. Some houses near the site of the eruption were engulfed by fire. In the first hours after the first explosion, there were some delays in flights from and to La Palma, although the airport was still open to air traffic at the time of writing this information.

Expert volcanologists pointed out that it is a strombolian eruption, that is, explosive eruptions followed by periods of calm of variable duration. A seismologist from the National Geographic Institute of Spain explained to the Spanish public television RTVE that “the only thing that can be done is to evacuate and do a follow-up to try to estimate how much he has left. Right now it's early days,” he pointed out.

The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sanchez, traveled in the afternoon to the island of La Palma to closely follow the evolution of the volcanic eruption. Sanchez postponed the trip to the New York City that he planned to begin this Sunday. The Civil Guard has deployed its troops around the volcano to prevent the curious from approaching the area.