Island’s shock, awe and terror

The awesome power of volcanoes was brought home with the eruption last week of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma in the Canary Islands.

Thousands of people had to be evacuated and at least 100 homes were destroyed by a 15-metre-high lava flow.

Fortunately, warnings prevented a tragedy on the scale of the eruption of Whakaari on White Island in New Zealand in 2019.

The island attracted around 10,000 tourists a year and, despite scientists raising the alert level, there were 47 visitors there at the time, 22 of whom were killed.

“Volcanoes are always going to erupt on this planet and they will cause deaths,” said Natalie Starkey.

“Scientists are getting really good at forecasting when they might erupt but we can’t be exact and we don’t always get it right.

“If one doesn’t erupt when we say, people can lose trust and it had been 50 years since an eruption on Cumbre Vieja but it was fortunate that the evacuation warnings were in time and were heeded.

“It’s what is called a fissurestyle eruption with lava spraying out from cracks at the top of the volcano. So, you don’t get many months of warnings that you might get if one massively blows its top.

“But it was being watched and the ground actually rose by about six inches with the magma pushing up and there were thousands of mini earthquakes, which helped trigger the warnings.

“The tourism industry has an important part to play in educating people of the dangers,” said Starkey. “People need to realise when it isn’t safe.”

La Palma’s Cumbre Vieja erupts last week spewing poisonous gas