Cloud caused by the Cumbre Vieja volcano.Samuel Sánchez / EL PAÍS
Fran Leal, the Los Llanos de Aridane construction councilor, tries to fix by day what the volcano destroys him at night. It is an uneven fight and almost lost beforehand, but that does not mean that Leal stops giving it. Every afternoon, accompanied by a small team and a local police officer, Leal, from the PP, he goes through the part of the affected municipality, contemplates what has been damaged and notes what has been destroyed or what is about to be destroyed: the lamppost that melts as if it were made of plastic, the broken road, the sunken house or the pipe split in two. The next morning, with a battalion of workers, he tries to rebuild some of the water supply by connecting pipes located in the lower part of the town, not yet damaged, in a sort of emergency bypass, while closing mouths that they pour water on the ground.If the lava continues to advance towards the sea, this will not help, but Leal is not distracted by that and prefers to face the volcano every day in his town (20,000 inhabitants). His phone continuously receives calls from evacuated neighbors who know that he is one of the few who enters the forbidden zone and who is always asked the same questions:
"Have you seen my house?"
Do you know if he already threw it away?
More information
The Greek geologist who notified La Palma
The main cone of the La Palma volcano suffers a partial collapse: "It does not support its own weight"
In a week, the arm of the volcano has invaded about 200 hectares, has crushed more than 425 buildings, of which approximately 300 are homes and has disabled more than 15 kilometers of road.
Right now, the lava mountain is stopped in the center of the Todoque neighborhood but another language is advancing a little further, threatening an area of tourist accommodation.
In other words, this is not over.
In fact, it may have only just begun.
Fran Leal, Councilor for Public Works of Los Llanos, in the Canarian wrestling field, on La Palma.
Both Leal and the mayor, Noelia García, from the PP, also ask geologists and volcanologists the same question: How long is this going to last?
And volcanologists and geologists answer them the same thing: that they don't know, that nobody knows.
The safest thing is that this volcano behaves like its immediate predecessors, the other volcanoes on La Palma: the Teneguía, in 1971, lasted 21 days.
The San Juan, in 1949, lasted until 47. There were other older ones with other records.
Taking all this into account, the most likely (without this meaning much) is that the volcano that is now on all televisions in the country will last at least three weeks and, at most, almost three months.
Focused on the present
Leal, the overwhelmed councilman of Los Llanos, knows this but prefers to forget about the three months and concentrate on what happens here and now. He is clear about what to look for as soon as he arrives at the restricted area each afternoon because he knows which building will fall next if there is no luck: the Todoque school. It is already empty, they had time to take the computers, the blackboard, the furniture, the lockers, the paintings, the murals or the coat racks. Nearby there is an ambulatory. And a little further away is the cemetery, located behind a hill that protects it for now, but defenseless if lava accumulates in that sector. The councilor does not even want to think about what it would mean for his people if the cemetery were buried under hundreds of tons of incandescent living rock. He prefers to deal with the pipes to be repaired,in making plans for the future.
Because one day, he says, the volcano will finish throwing ash and burning stones and will go back to sleep and we will have to start fixing everything.
Leal uses a word that now sounds strange: “Normality.
It will be necessary to insist on that.
It will be difficult because our town, as we knew it, has disappeared: something new has risen above it, a desert.
Although I tell you one thing: here we are not born deceived.
We know where we come from, what we are.
We are from the land of volcanoes.
Our parents told us about the volcanoes they saw as children and we will tell our children about this one we are seeing now.
That is why we will know how to fix everything.
Now: either help comes from the Government and the Canary Islands Government or we are dead ”.
Lava from the volcano on a house in El Paso.
RAFA AVERO
5,900 evacuated
The first thing will be to try to relocate the more than 300 families who have lost or will lose their home. Yesterday, there were already 5,900 evacuees on the island. The land on which their homes stood simply no longer exists, it is something else: it has been replaced by an irregular and unrecognizable slope of steaming lava. And it will end up being a piece of mountain similar to those found by the first settlers of this island. It will take several months to cool down, depending on its distance from the volcano and the height it reaches. It may be declared a protected natural area.
In any case, it will be necessary to look for another buildable land or floors already made in other parts of the island. Juan Miguel Rodríguez, the mayor of Tazacorte (4,800 inhabitants), another of the affected municipalities, has resolved to present to the plenary session a transfer of municipal land so that, with money from the Canarian Government or the central Government, blocks of flats can be erected there to house 168 homes. "I thought about it when a neighbor stopped me on the street and asked me: 'Juan Miguel, what if he takes my house, what do I do?"
The Los Llanos City Council, for its part, has signed an agreement with an investor who had abandoned —although almost finished— about thirty houses in order to resume the works at the moment and accelerate their completion. The mayor, Noelia García, of the PP, adds that the Canarian Government is thinking of building prefabricated blocks to urgently relocate those most in need.
At the same time, when the lava cools, whatever happens when it happens, brigades such as those of the Los Llanos Councilor for Works will enter to try to reopen the blocked roads. Three cross the Aridane valley. One was hit the first day by the volcano. The second, the busiest on the entire island because it communicates with the banana trees along the coast, has also been destroyed. Only the third remains, the one that runs almost parallel to the sea. And it is in danger, because if the lava finally reaches the coast it will end up sectioning it. If this happens, it will condemn the inhabitants of the area to make a detour of more than an hour to save the valley. And it will cut off the banana farms, one of the island's economic engines. That is why the mayor of Tazacorte, of Nueva Canarias, warns: “The day after the lava stops,We have to run to start putting everything in order ”.
Ángeles Nieves, director of the Los Campitos school, devastated by lava, in El Paraíso, at her home, with the volcano in the background, on La Palma. Samuel Sanchez
Ángeles Nieves is the director of the Los Campitos school and she gazes at the volcano from the entrance of her house in Los Llanos in horror. From there, look at the plume of dense and ugly black smoke and listen to the repeated explosions, with a cadence that seems artificial. Nieves lost her school the first day. There was no time to save anything, as happened with Todoque's sister school. To the one from Nieves there were 26 children from the area, of all ages. Of these, 24 have also been left homeless. The director attends to a mother by phone. He talks to her, tells her that a lot of donations are coming for the school, he inspires her with the little encouragement that she has left. He hangs up and receives another call: they are two friends of Todoque who have been evacuated and who need Nieves to keep some things from his house in the garage for some time. "Voucher",He says.
Planning the future
While aid arrives, while they wait for the volcano to fall asleep so that they can start planning the reconstruction, the inhabitants of La Palma come together to try to shake off this nightmare together. There is an unusual and growing tide of solidarity. There are restaurants in Los Llanos that close at twelve because the cooks are going to prepare food for the evacuees. There are continuous donations of clothes, toys, books, furniture, ready meals or newly bought sheets and there is hardly any place to store so much. A waiting list of people who want to help had to be set up. There are volunteers even to take care of the dogs and cats that families who have lost their homes have had to leave behind due to not having space. Among them is a girl who walks a very old dog,without an owner and without a name who found a firefighter in a hastily abandoned farm and who had all the ballots to die there alone. Did not die. You are not alone. The girl called him Pedro.
With the same determination of the councilor for works of Los Llanos, Nieves, the director of the Los Campitos school, says that they will soon have a new one.
Because children "need to get back to the routine as soon as possible."
When asked what kind of routine a child is going to have who has lost his house and his class in one day due to the eruption of a volcano that does not stop erupting and that can be seen from almost anywhere on the island, the teacher answer calmly:
"What we can give you."
That is why school is needed more than ever.
Shortly after his friends arrived, with a van loaded with things.
Nieves opened the garage door for them.
"What about the furniture?"
Haven't you brought furniture?
Asked the headmistress of the school.
"We haven't been able to dismantle them."
They stayed there, ”her friend replied.
The two women look at each other for a long time without saying anything.
Then they get together to download.
