Lessons of La Palma Volcano

The emergency couldn’t be avoided, but it could be managed properly with scientific perspective.

 

By Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo

 

 

EL PASO (Canary Islands), Spain – On September 19^th, 2021, 15:10 local time (1410 GMT), a crack broke amid a pine forest at Cabeza de Vaca Place. A big amount of wáter steam, gases, pyroclastic matter, and lava began to flow like a jet – a volcano had borning.

 

During 85 days, the incandescent matter covered up around 4.6 sq mi, affected 3000 buildings, displaced 7000 people. Also, it razed banana plantations that support part of the economy in La Palma Island, the most north-western of Canary Islands. The tourism, that activates the other part of the economic motor, was held constant but not massive like the pre-eruptive period.

 

For the science, it was a time to secure learning and how it allows to administer a developing natural disaster, webcast worldwide real-time, just one casualty indirectly related to the eruption. About this insight, what can the world learn, how to apply it to local realities?

 

 

Detecting patterns

Although the event seems to be gestated during four years, the preparation for the scientists took a decade since 2011 when Tagoro Volcano erupted in el Hierro Island, southwest side of the Canaries, building a cone that left 266 feet depth. If it didn’t cause victims, it did allow to test technologically more advanced monitoring instruments.

 

That time, the scientists could prevent the authorities, and these last ones to the people to avoid risks successfully. However, the Tagoro event was under the sea, how could it transfer that experience if it could happen on land, considering the volcanic background of the Canaries? All the islands emerged from the sea ground because of successive eruptions. In fact, its highest peak, Teide [Tédé] (12,188 feet altitude) is a volcano and the summit across Spain.

 

La Palma (273.5sq mi) is not the exception. The northern half has cataclysmic evidences like Tabúriente Caldera, but that portion is inactive thousands of years ago. For some reason, the hot spot moved to the south, and specifically to Cumbré Vieja (Old Peak) Ridge(6394 feet altitude) wich name cheats (Cumbré Nueva or New Peak is more northern, 6781 feet altitude, that is really much older) because geologically speaking, it’s a much more recent little range, and volcanically more active by the same reason.

 

On its slope, seven volcanoes have broken out in the last half millennium, since historic records are available) and two eruptions have could been studied and registered with a sstill-developing science during the last century: San Juan (1949) and Teneguía (1971). What the scientists learned from both is the eruptions trend to be strombolian – explosive, expulsion of much pyroclast, formation of pretty wide lava tongues that can run for miles until reaching the sea.

 

Another fact the scientists know is all the volcanic events of the last millennium have consisted in eruptions that have ejected much incandescent matter, have formed little prominent cones, and once the eruptions ceased, they haven’t erupted never again. It’s about the monogenetic volcanoes (like Xitlé in Mexico City, or Andagua ones in Arequipa, Peru), quite different to his most colossal brothers, the multigenetic (or polygenetic), better known as stratovolcanoes (like Místi in Arequipa City, Peru).

 

The next parameter was tracking the seismicity, and especially a type of activity known as earthquake swarm, few magnitude quakes but located in the same area, at the same depth. Very few are perceived by the human being but they warn about an eventual eruption even provided the zone to be volcanically active, like it happened in Paricutín (Michoacán, Mexico) 1943, or in Galápagos Islands (Ecuador), the last two decades. The difference is between both cases is that there were no instruments in Mexico warning an imminent eruption until the soil broke in a corn field.

 

Coming next, the scientists learned to track the flow of magma, the igneous melting matter that forms ddue to the high pressure of the terrestrial crust over the mantle or the middle layer of our planet, what triggers many times because of plate tectonics. This is known as tremor.

 

Ultimately, wen the magma opens its way through the cracks and weakest zones of the crust looking for reach the surface, they can create a kind of bumps. That indicator is the soil deformation. If all the values get to a critical point, it’s probable the eruption happens in a matter of weeks or days… or maybe hours like it happened with the volcano of Cumbré Vieja.

 

 

This was the first day of La Palma volcano’s eruption broadcast on live by the Reuters feed. TV Canaria local broadcasting as well as the volcano roar can be heard on the footage:

 

Protocols & hyper-surveillance

The outbreak of a volcano can mix enthusiasm and fear by equal as much as it can turn a touristic attraction, what in La Palma case, it has trried to be managed caring the sensitiveness of displaced people, many of who lost their houses or estates under the lava.

 

For authorities of CanaryIslands, a volcano is ever an imminent risk but highly watched. The Volcanology Institute of the Canaries (INVOLCAN, as in Spanish)is formed by an eminently scientific crew in charge of detecting and verifying all the event indicators. This information is provided to the Volcanic emergencies Plan of the Canaries (PEVOLCA as in Spanish) that designs the safety protocol for managing the crisis.

 

In the Cumbré Vieja event, the INVOLCAN has a strong ally: the Spanish National Geographic Institute (IGN, as its initials in Spanish) that despite not receiving enough budget to work in 2022, it’s given worthy data and experience to Canaries and La Palma technicians who specify the response facing the emergency and keeping the scientific perspective.

 

Meanwhile, the PEVOLCA is directly connected to the people and the media by providing verified data for acting on time. Additionally, local authorities stood by the on-the-field participation of local police, Civil Guard, and the Military Emergencies Unit (UME, as its initials in Spanish), a Spain government’s corp specialized in operations of evacuation, refuge, and rescue.

 

The coordination levels among all those instances has been holding fluently and opportunely. Inclusive, the own volcano was hyper-watched by all the available technology: direct observation, drones with visible light & thermic signal cameras, gas measurers, seismologic stations, satellite surveillance, and a 24/7 webcasting that made complicated to miss any detail.

 

The evacuation processes didn’t avoid many properties left burying by the lava or the ashes, or even that a crack opened just under the door of a house, but they did allow to save all the lives as it was possible. Also, the tourists had restricted Access to avoid their curiosity to blok the work and movement of authorities and emergency services.

 

 

The life breaks out again

The volcano ceased its visible activity on December 13^th, 2021, around 21:00 local time (GMT). However, the scientists didn’t chant victory but gave a deadline until December 24^th, 2021, to verify the underground indicators fell to a minimum not representing hazards, plus to give a time for the volcanic building to degas and the existent poisonous residues around to disperse. For Christmas, the eruption was officially over.

 

Despite the volcanic risk reduced, they have recommended the people which houses or properties are near the cone (according to IGN, 3688 feet final altitude) and that have suffered minimum or inexistent damages, not to rush re-populating until verifying the hazard to be ceased at all. That could take until April 2022. Meanwhile, many displaced people live in houses of relatives, Friends, or hotel rooms given as shelters.

 

The new challenges for science are easing the zone covered up by the lava as spaces to re-settle-down the population (considering that Cumbré Vieja is still active) and recuperating agricultural areas. Some banana producers have asked the authorities to customize the law for cropping over the lava delta, locally known as fajana, that the eruption gained to the sea – almost 99 acres.

 

Another challenge will be recuperating the forest lands mostly populated by the Canary pine (Pinus canariensis), an endemic tree that serves as a refuge to the local fauna. Although it’s about resilient species to volcanic events, the biologists study strategies to make the process much more efficient. The soil naturally fertilized by the eruption will do the rest.

 

Finally, although not les important, how to manage the mental health of the people, especially children, and much emphazizing in who have lost it all. Many say they will rise up out the debris again, but psychologist believe it’s necessary pay much care on post-traumatic stress. Maybe it’s impossible to avoid another eruption in La Palma or across the whole Canaries, but what is possible to do is how to live with the risk and how to respond assertively if it happens for avoiding any life misses in any other kind of future event.

 

With reports of RTVE Noticias, Antena 3 Noticias, and BBC News. © 2021 Asociación Civil Factor Tierra. All Rights Reserved. Comment this in the box below, o on our Facebook and Twitter accounts. Would you like to know more? Write us at factortierra@gmail.com