Erupting volcano: fear of acid rain in the Canaries | The lava tongues have slowed their advance, they could reach the sea on Tuesday

Lava tongues from the Cumbre Vieja volcano, which erupted on Sunday on the Spanish island of La Palma, have already caused the destruction of a around 100 houses and the evacuation of around 5,500 people. In the afternoon, the glowing rivers slowed their progress and did not reach the sea last night, as expected. ANDhe contact with water could finally occur today: the great fear is the acid rain which could cause this fact.

A spokesperson for the Canarian government assured in the afternoon that “the lava movement is quite slow, it is considerably slower than at the start“he added.

“We have no human loss or personal injury to regret, I think this is the best news,” said Ángel Torres, president of the regional government of the Canary Islands, located off the coast of the northwest. of Africa, during a press conference with the president of the government Pedro Sánchez, who has been in La Palma since Sunday.

However, the eruption, the first to be recorded on the island since 1971, has caused damage and forced 5,500 residents to leave their homes since it began on Sunday afternoon. “For the moment, the most important thing is to ensure security” because “the volcano continues to act,” Sánchez warned. The Prime Minister has postponed the trip to New York to attend the UN General Assembly.

For her part, the Minister of Tourism, Reyes Maroto, created controversy by reminding that hotels are open and inviting tourists to come closer on the island to witness “what nature has brought to La Palma”, in a statement he later described.

When hot lava boils seawater, a series of chemical and physical reactions occur that cause acid fog columns which can be toxic. In addition, explosions capable of spitting rocks over 200 meters and high temperature waves that penetrate the earth can occur.

The regional government of the Canary Islands has, however, clarified that for now, he was not planning any new evacuations.

The impressive lava columns destroyed trees, invaded roads and managed to get into homes, as several videos posted on social media show. “This lava tongue swallows up everything in its path”, described Mariano Hernández Zapata, president of the local government of La Palma, on Spanish television, about some washes that he said could reach six meters in height. “It is dramatic to see how many life projects disappear,” he added.

At more than 1000 ° C, the streams of fire advance at an average speed of 700 meters per hour, according to the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan).

Cumbre Vieja emits columns of smoke several hundred meters high and between 6,000 and 9,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide per day, according to the institute. So far, the smoke has not caused the airspace to close.

Escape with what’s on

In just three minutes, Angie Chaux, a neighbor of Los Llanos de Ariadne, who lives a few miles from the volcano, had to leave her home at dawn with her husband and three-year-old son. “We weren’t home when the alert came,” said the 27-year-old, “but when we saw him, we wanted to go back and the road was closed. The police let us in and said “three minutes”He explained. He entered and was only able to take the emergency backpack that the authorities had told them to prepare.

Yahaira García was luckier: he managed to get hold of clothes, television, a computer and some souvenirs of his own, located at the foot of the volcano, before leaving. “My house was vibrating too much, it looked like it was going to collapse “, said this woman who has not slept for two nights. “The pictures are very harsh. We don’t know when we will be back,” he added.

Located in the center of the island of La Palma – one of the seven that make up the tourist archipelago of the Canary Islands – the Cumbre Vieja volcano was under intense surveillance after recording a significant increase in its seismic activity in recent days. Finally, the eruption began shortly after 3 p.m. local time on Sunday.

According to Ángel Torres, the Cumbre Vieja would have between 17 and 20 million cubic meters of lava. For this reason, the eruption will continue, even if “according to the technical committee, everything seems to indicate that there will be no new points of eruption,” he explained.

The activity of Cumbre Vieja could however last “several weeks or a few months”, due to the presence of a second reservoir of magma located at 20 or 30 kilometers deep.