At 15.12h this afternoon, a volcano on Montaña Rajada, (El Paso) on the island of La Palma within the archipelago of the Canary Islands went into eruption.

There was a small earth tremor which preceded the volcanic eruption and then a loux explosion within the volcano followed by an enormous column of smoke and fire. The erupting magma within formed two lava flows issuing from two separate cracks in the wall of the volcano.

The local authorities had been keeping an eye on the volcano since the 11th of this month when a continuous string of earth tremors began. The Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN) has registered no fewer than 6,600 minor earth tremors in the Cumbre Vieja area in the southern part of La Palma.

The last eruption took place in 1971 on the island when the Teneguía went active. The present volcano is the ‘youngest’ within Spain.

During the morning there have been 130 earth tremors and the authorities have begun to evacuate local with mobility problems within the municipalities of El Paso, Los Llanos de Aridane, Villa de Mazo and Fuencaliente.

The Prime Minister of the autonomous government for the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, who said that they couldn’t be sure the volcano was going to erupt today, has send a message calling for islanders to remain calm.

However, the IGN had recorded the biggest seismic shock throughout the whole weekend this morning. The first tremor registered 3.8 on the Richter Scale which was immediately preceded by one of 3.2 mblg.

Volcanologists on the island noted that the Cumbre Vieja mountain side had deformed between 10 and 15 centimetres prior to the two vents forming. This was caused by the pressure from the magma lake below containing approximately 11m cubic metres of magma between six and seven kilometres down, working its way to the surface.

The quantity is about a quarter of the material released during the 1971 Teneguía eruption that spewed 43m cu/m during the 24 days that the eruption lasted.

(News: La Palma, Canary Islands – Photo: C7)