The approximately 5,000 people who have been evacuated since Sunday in La Palma after the volcanic eruption of 'Cumbre Vieja' observe with "uncertainty" how the lava flow runs towards the west of La Palma, on the way to the coast of Los Llanos de Aridane and Tazacorte.
"We don't know how long we have to be away or how long the volcano is going to last, and you can't stop it, it eats everything", Marta, a neighbor from Las Manchas, whose house is in the "ground zero" of the eruption, just a kilometer and a half away, tells Europa Press.
From the El Fuerte barracks, in Breña Baja, where she is staying, she comments that the eruption "caught them off guard" because, although they knew that there was going to be an eruption "yes or yes", the island was still in 'yellow traffic light'. "You expect it but you don't expect it, and supposedly it wasn't going to be but nature is like that," she says.
She says that despite everything, they had the cars, the documentation and the bags ready because her parents already lived through the Teneguía and San Juan eruptions and were convinced that "it was going to happen", and although it is "impressive and beautiful" to see the volcano erupting, she regrets that "it has done a lot of damage", with many homes affected. "It hasn't reached me but it has reached other relatives," she says.
Faced with those who highlight the benefits of the eruption from a geological or tourist point of view, she points out that the people of La Palma see it "in another way", because it "affects them fully" and on top of that they don't know when it will end.
Marta comments that she will stay in El Fuerte for as long as the eruption lasts because they have "nowhere to go" and although the reception "is excellent", they are still barracks and there are many people.
For now, the lava flow has destroyed crops, a unitary school, and about 100 homes in the municipalities of El Paso and Los Llanos de Aridane, and descends westward to the coast of Los Llanos and Tazacorte.
