La Palma: Fresh volcanic vents spew out fast-flowing lava heading for undamaged land
Drone footage captures fresh lava spewing out of several new volcanic vents, as the eruption that first started wreaking havoc on the island in September shows no signs of slowing down
More than two months after a volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma erupted, several new vents have opened up spewing out lava and ash.
New lava began speeding down a ridge on Sunday and threatened to wreak more damage on the island's infrastructure, roads and homes, authorities said.
The volcano continued to erupt on Monday, with fluid molten rock flowing out of its main vent at a speed of 20 feet per minute (6 metres per minute) towards land that had so far remained unspoiled by the disaster, said María José Blanco, a spokeswoman for Spain's National Geographic Institute.
Experts said at least 80 quakes were recorded on Saturday night, with the most powerful reaching a magnitude of 3.6. Some of them could be felt by residents.
Fresh lava was seen flowing down a ridge on Sunday and Monday:
La Palma's Cumbre Vieja volcano first erupted on September 19 and has left more than 1,100 hectares (2,700 acres) of the island’s surface covered in lava.
Thousands of homes, roads, land, power lines and irrigation pipes for the island's economically important banana plantations have all been gravely impacted.
One of the rivers of lava last week destroyed a local cemetery, reburying the remains of over 3,000 people.
Despite the immense damages, no injuries or deaths have been directly linked to the eruption - partly due to officials' speedy evacuation of around 7,000 people on the Spanish Canary Island.
The eruption has ebbed and surged over the past 10 weeks with at least 11 different lava flows identified by scientists.
Despite the unabating volcanic activity on the island, flights returned to La Palma over the weekend, following a week of cancellations by airlines due to the amount of volcanic ash blowing in the airport's direction.
Tourism is one of the biggest industries on the Canary Islands, due to its year-round warm weather.