Negal Victor Torres, regional president of the Canary Islands, said that despite the increased activity, the lava was following a trajectory similar to previous flows and was escaping from areas that had hitherto been abandoned.
“Due to the air quality we had to order some lockdowns, but we are not planning to evacuate more people,” he said in an interview to TV channel TVE on Monday morning.
Torres said the volcano emitted nearly three times the amount of material ejected a quarter of the time during the island’s last major eruption in 1971.
He said his administration planned to buy about 300 homes to accommodate those who lost their homes and added that it was too early to say how big the total loss would be.
“We’re still in the middle of it… if the lava continues to grow by the same amount that we saw last night, the damage is going to be greater,” Torres said.
Nearly 1,000 buildings have been destroyed and 6,000 people have been evacuated since the eruption began on September 19, mostly from the cities of El Paso and Los Llanos de Ariadne, the main population center in the island of 83,000 people. give from
Visiting the island over the weekend, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez promised 206 million euros in aid to help with reconstruction and insisted that La Palma is safe for tourism.