On Tuesday night, lava flow 2 reached the coast of La Palma via Los Guirres beach, thus starting a new delta that is now overlapping the existing one to the south (as seen in the picture above), created by the first lava flows that reached the sea, making it even bigger than it already was.
This flow, named lava flow 2, is filling in gaps and growing in surface area, following the original run, but a fill is likely to occur between flows 1 and 9 over the next few days. However, Involcan says that the evolution of the flows has remained within their forecasts.
Due to the general improvement in air quality, classes in schools have been resumed today in the five affected municipalities in the west of the island.
The number of people housed in hotels today stands at 467, with 400 in Fuencaliente and 67 in Los Llanos de Aridane. In addition, there are 43 dependent people being cared for in health centres.
The area affected by lava is estimated to have increased by 10 hectares, so in all probability today it will exceed 1,000 hectares in total (which is 10 million square metres or 1,200 football pitches), and the maximum width of the area the flows cover is maintained at 3.1 kilometres, given that flow 2 is in an interior zone among pre-existing ones (1 and 9).
With regard to infrastructure damage, data from the Copernicus satellite shows that there are 2,724 buildings/constructions affected by the lava, of which 2,605 have been destroyed and 119 are still at risk. The total area of affected crops amounts to 290.45 hectares, of which 164.38 are bananas, 59.84 are vineyards and 25 are avocados.
Image courtesy of: I Love the world
