LIVE | La Palma volcano activity seems to resume its downward trend | PHOTOS

The volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma It seems to resume its downward trend today, despite a rise in sulfur dioxide emissions and after Wednesday’s rebound in seismicity and tremor, on the eve of two months after the eruption began. Scientists are waiting to see if this pattern of the last few weeks of less observable activity in the eruption is consolidated, which began on September 19 and whose end no one dares to predict due to the ups and downs that the volcano has presented in This weather.

It is these short-term fluctuations in the observable measurements that motivate the caution of the experts, who advocate not assessing the changes from one day to the next, but the long-term trend.

What leaves no doubt are the damage suffered since then: more than a thousand hectares and almost 1,500 buildings razed and thousands of people evicted.

SEISMICITY DOWN AND EMISSIONS UP

After an increase in tremor and seismicity was recorded on Wednesday (more than 300 earthquakes, the highest number in its single day since the seismic crisis and subsequent eruption of the volcano began), as well as a greater emission of pyroclasts and a advance of the lava by lavage 4, today several parameters show decreases.

Seismicity – intense at intermediate levels yesterday and more felt by the population than in recent weeks – remains high this Thursday, but decreasing, so for now the long-term stability trend is maintained.

The same occurs with the tremor signal, which intensified to descend in the last hours.

But in the case of sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions, it has been the opposite: it had fallen on Wednesday and has rebounded today to a range of between 16,000 and 32,000 tons per day, in any case less than the maximum 50,000 tons recorded on the 23rd. of September.

In addition, according to the Special Plan for Protection against Volcanic Risk of the Canary Islands (Pevolca), stream 4 is widening and slowly advances to the coast, from where it is about 300 meters away, but it is not known if the magma will eventually fall into the sea.

It would be the third time that the lava reaches the Atlantic, after the lava flow that formed the lava delta over the ocean (the so-called “fajana”) and the one that has covered the beach of Los Guirres.

The surface covered by lava now reaches 1,040 hectares, the “fajana” occupies 43 hectares and the maximum width between flows is 3,200 meters.

Now the experts focus their attention on the possible incidence of the rains that are expected for the next few hours and that place La Palma on a yellow warning.

However, it is possible that the precipitations mainly affect the north and east of the island, while the volcano – still unnamed – is on the west slope.

The direction of the wind blowing from the north is also closely monitored and has improved air quality in the Aridane valley, but a role is expected to the west, which could compromise not only the operation of the La Palma airport, but also also from the airports of the Canary Islands of Tenerife and La Gomera.

HIGH GAS EMISSION FIGURES

In two months of activity, the volcano has released into the atmosphere as much sulfur dioxide as that emitted by human activity in the countries of the European Union throughout 2019, according to the calculation made by two of the scientific institutions that monitor the gases that the eruption expels, the Canary Islands Volcanological Institute and the University of Manchester (United Kingdom), with special monitoring of SO2.

If the emission is compared with the same period of time, 59 days, the amounts of sulfur dioxide released by the La Palma volcano are seven times those emitted by the entire European Union in two months.

Regarding the economic damage caused by the volcano, the first estimates place them between 550 and 700 million euros (about 620-800 million dollars at the current exchange rate), a figure higher than 1% of the archipelago’s GDP (about 430 million euros, about 490 million dollars), which would allow access to the solidarity funds of the European Union for the reconstruction of the island.

Just tomorrow the European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, will visit La Palma, who will meet there with the Spanish chief executive, Pedro Sánchez, and the regional president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres.

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