La Palma rescuers battle to save town in path of lava

Workers aim to channel molten rock from eruption along trench to preserve homes and a church

‘We’re trying to channel the lava into a ravine that runs to the side of the church. There’s no harm in trying’

FIREFIGHTERS on La Palma are frantically digging a channel to redirect a river of lava in a last-ditch battle to salvage as much as they can of a town destined to be flattened by molten rock flowing downhill from the Spanish island’s Cumbre Vieja volcano.

Rescue workers on Tuesday night began to use heavy machinery to dig a channel they hope to encourage the lava to flow along, creating the least destructive path possible as it passes through the town of Todoque en route to the sea around one mile away.

The molten rock has already destroyed homes, farms and a school further uphill.

The slowing of the lava, which was calculated to be moving at 700 metres per hour but now appears to be advancing at around 100 metres per hour, has offered hope that some of the hundreds of homes remaining in its path, and Todoque’s church, may still be saved.

“We are trying to channel the lava into a ravine that runs to the side of the church,” said a member of Gran Canaria’s firefighting service, sent to La Palma to help cope with the volcano crisis. “We know it’s very difficult but we’re going to give it a go. There is no harm in trying,” he added.

The operation will deepen an existing ravine to channel a greater volume of the lava, narrowing the flow’s destructive path. Some buildings are being sacrificed to make the passage smoother. On Wednesday, firefighters said there were some early signs that their plan was working.

In the 24 hours to yesterday morning, the area covered by lava had increased by 50 per cent to 154 hectares after the volcano erupted on Sunday. The number of buildings buried doubled from the previous day to 320, data from the European Commission’s Copernicus Earth observation satellite system showed.

Medical experts and meteorologists yesterday warned that changing weather conditions were causing a greater danger of health problems from sulphur dioxide clouds, with concentrations measured in Tenerife 400 times their usual levels.

The wind direction has changed from north-easterly, which had helped to blow gases and ash away from the main Canary Islands populations, to a westerly direction that will send ash across the rest of La Palma and potentially dangerous gas clouds as far as North Africa and north into the Spanish mainland.

Involcan, the Canary Islands’ volcanology institute, has calculated that the eruption will last for between 24 and 84 days.