‘The situation is catastrophic’: as the lava flows continue, La Palma islanders face an uncertain future

Maria Teresa Rodriguez was given ten minutes by police to collect her most treasured items and leave her home in Todoque on Wednesday, as a river of molten lava bore down on the village in Spain’s Canary Island La Palma.

Despite the haste, there was still time to hug friends.

“I wanted to hug everyone who is losing their homes, we are already brothers and sisters,” she said. “The important thing is that we are alive and all the rest we can start from new.”

Francisco Perez was hoping to snatch a treasured guitar before he left his home, perhaps forever.

“I want to get a guitar that I’ve had since I was small, a few papers and check my mother’s house is okay,” he told Spanish television TVE as he prepared to leave.

Piling mattresses, bedding and anything else they could grab into the back of pick-up trucks, about 1,000 residents formed a convoy out of the village before the red-hot magnum snaked towards their homes.

Like other villages in the path of lava from Sunday’s volcanic eruption, Todoque faced destruction.

Already 6,000 people have been forced to leave their homes behind and are living in temporary accommodation as the molten lava swallowed more than 300 buildings.

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The Canary Islands government has conceded that as many as 10,000 people may have to be evacuated.

Experts said the eruption could last between 24 and 84 days – meaning it could last until Christmas.

The Canary Island Volcanology Institute said it based its calculation on the length of previous eruptions in the archipelago, which like the last eruption in 1971, were followed by heavy lava flows.

There have been a number of smaller strong eruptions, which hurl rocks and cinders into the air.

The volcano has been spewing out between 8,000 and 10,500 tonnes of sulphur dioxide, which can cause irritation to the lungs and eyes.

However, experts say that further dangers lie ahead for residents of one of the smallest islands in the Spanish archipelago with the threat of earthquakes, more lava flows, toxic gases, volcanic ash and acid rain.

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For an island of 85,000 inhabitants, La Palma’s economic survival is also in doubt.

The island relies on farming for 50 per cent of its GDP.  Tourism is another staple, which before the Covid-19 pandemic, accounted for 35 per cent of the local economy.

With thousands of residents living in tents or temporary accommodation, business groups said the authorities need to act quickly to bring in aid and offer them permanent places to live and some way to compensate farmers who have lost everything.  A series of roads, schools and hundreds of homes were destroyed.

Angel Victor Torres, the president of the Canary Islands government, has asked the European Union for €400m in restructuring funds to repair the damage to the island’s economy.

“These funds will be to repair houses, public infrastructures like roads, the hydraulic system and colleges,” he said.

The Canary Islands qualifies for EU aid as it is classed a special zone on the periphery of the bloc.

Cristina Hernandez, of the La Palma Federation of Businesses (Fedepalma), said farming businesses which are the staple of the island’s economy had been badly hit by the volcano.

“The situation is catastrophic. We have got thousands of people who have lost everything in the eruption and will have to start from zero,” she told The Independent.

“What we are looking for is urgent help from the government to find permanent housing for those whose homes have been destroyed. To go from your own house to live in a tent is hard.”

She added: “Maybe a bank which owns lots of properties could offer these to the islanders. We all know each other here. It is time to come together.”

Beyond the material damage to homes and business, psychologists helping those who have been displaced say the emotional damage to the population of an island known as the unsung Canary Island, should not be overlooked.

“The people who have had to leave their homes have experienced anger, denial. They are living with feelings of leaving behind their entire life,” Carmen Linares, of the Tenerife College of Psychologists, told The Independent.

“It is not like a fire, in this case you lose everything, house and everything.”

A girl’s pink pair of shoes have become a symbol of the way the community has responded to the crisis.

They were among thousands of items which have been donated to churches and other aid organisations to help families who have lost everything because of the volcanic eruption.