The Council of Ministers has approved the declaration of the island of La Palma as an Area Seriously Affected by a Civil Protection Emergency and has authorized the allocation of an initial aid of 10.5 million euros that will be sent to the autonomous community to meet the most urgent needs of housing and household goods for those affected.
During the press conference after the Council of Ministers, the spokeswoman made this announcement, which she described as "the most important" related to the emergency at this time to provide assistance to the island where the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano began ten days ago, which has caused "many families" to have lost "everything."
Thus, she explained that the Special Reconstruction Plan for La Palma is being launched, which begins with this first phase of urgency, but will then be maintained over time during the recovery phase so that when the volcano stops, an assessment of damages will be carried out to then begin the recovery of the island.
To this end, the first necessary step has been the "formality" of declaring the island as an area seriously affected as a civil protection emergency, which is the formula for incorporating all the Ministries in addressing the emergency.
But for the time being, to address the initial housing needs and to acquire the most essential household goods for the people of La Palma, Rodríguez has announced "specific aid" through a direct subsidy that will be sent to the autonomous community of the Canary Islands, for an amount of 10.5 million euros.
Of these, she specified, 5.5 million will be allocated to the purchase of 107 homes and another 5 million will be distributed through a debit card to those affected so that families can acquire the most essential household goods.
She also reported that different commissions will be formed to ensure the agility of the aid and to monitor it in order to guarantee rigor, but taking into account the current concern that "agility is required" in its processing.
On the other hand, she said that this same afternoon, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will chair the first Joint Commission that brings together all the institutions that will address this follow-up.