Borja Suarez & Marco Trujillo

LA PALMA (Spain) – The red hot lava flowing from Spain’s Cumbre Vieja volcano thickened Monday after spectacular explosions on the northern side of the crater had occurred. However, authorities ruled out any further evacuations.

Angel Victor Torres, Canary Islands regional president, said that despite the increased activity, the flow of lava seemed to follow a similar path to past flows, and was avoiding certain areas which have been so far untouched.

In an interview with TVE, he stated that “we had to order some lockdowns to deal with the high air quality but we’re not going to evacuate anyone more.”

Torres stated that the volcano had produced roughly three times as much material during its last major eruption in 1971. This was approximately a quarter of what it did.

He said that the administration was planning to purchase around 300 houses for those who had lost their homes. However, it was still too early to determine how much damage this would cause.

Torres stated that “We are still in the middle…if thelava continues to rise in the same amounts we saw last night then the damage will be more severe.”

Since the eruption started on Sept. 19, approximately 1,000 structures have been damaged and nearly 6,000 people evacuated from El Paso, Los Llanos de Aridane and Los Llanos de Aridane. These are two main populations centres of the island, which has 83,000 inhabitants.

Pedro Sanchez, the Prime Minister of Chile, visited the island this weekend and pledged to provide 206 million euros for rebuilding. He also stressed that La Palma is safe for tourists.