La Palma volcano eruption ‘NOT IMPOSSIBLE’ Canary Islands warning after 928 seismic tremor

Scientists reminded residents to remember they live in “volcanically active territory” – just four months after the same island recorded a swarm of more than 200 tremors.

During an emergency committee meeting today, officials said there had been a “new magmatic intrusion” of low volume and very deep at 25 kilometres below land.

But they ruled out a volcanic eruption either on land or under the sea “in the short term”. La Palma is being monitored closely to detect every single movement, even though they have not been felt by the public.

The warning comes after there were 928 seismic movements since February 10, of which 85 were in the same area. 

Regional director of the National Geographic Institute, María José Blanco said there was no need for local residents or tourists to panic but they had to remember they lived within a “volcanically active territory”.

And the flurry of seismic activity is the latest to hit the Spanish islands, popular with British holidaymakers, after the Canary Islands were struck by a flurry of earthquakes in October last year.

The new quakes, measuring between 1.5 and 2.6 on the Richter scale, have been much deeper than the previous ones but changes to the surface have not been detected.

Monitoring has been stepped up and it is now at the highest level it could be across La Palma, with around 20 seismic detection stations and geochemical testing. 

Blanca Pérez, Deputy Minister of Environment of the Government of the Canary Islands said that between March and April, the Spanish Institute of Oceanography will undertake a new campaign to study this seismology.

An official statement released after today’s meeting said: “The increase in earthquakes detected in recent days on the island of La Palma is due to a new magmatic intrusion of low volume and deep (30 kilometres), which scientists do not link with a volcanic eruption in the short term.”

Scientists said the emergency committee will meet again and provide further information to the public if there is a further swarm of quakes. In 1971, the Teneguía cone on La Palma erupted and was followed by earthquakes.

One elderly fisherman died when he got too near the lava and was asphyxiated.

There was also an underwater eruption in El Hierro, another of the Canary islands, in 2011.