The Canary Islands have suffered two eruptions in a decade and it is the only Spanish autonomy with live volcanism, so it had all the ballots to take over the headquarters of Spanish volcanology.
This was announced last week by the Canarian president, Ángel Víctor Torres, and today it was confirmed during the visit of President Pedro Sánchez to La Palma.
The autonomy will house the National Center of Volcanology, but the pending unknown has not yet been cleared up: whether it will be located in La Palma, location of the last Spanish eruption, or on the island of Tenerife, where most of the technicians and specialists from organizations such as the National Geographic Institute (IGN), CSIC or Involcan.
The island on which the Center is finally located will be decided in contact with the Government of the Canary Islands, taking into account what the technicians say and following an evaluation process "which is regulated", the President of the Spanish Government said on Tuesday, according to collect EFE.
At a press conference in Santa Cruz de La Palma, Sánchez thanked the councils of Tenerife and La Palma for offering him.
And to meet this "logical and legitimate" demand, the Council of Ministers has approved a regulation with the evaluation of potential candidates, explained Sánchez, who has insisted that it is good news for the Canary Islands and that "this will not undermine not one iota” his commitment to the palmeros and the relaunch of the island.
The creation of this center arose after the volcanic crisis in La Palma, which led to the approval of a decree announcing the "necessary implementation of a National Plan to improve the response and prevention of phenomena such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes, with the participation of all the Departments and organizations that develop competencies in this area”.
Although the Canary Islands Volcanic Emergency Plan (Pevolca) has been able to coordinate the different institutions and scientists involved in observing the Palmero volcano, a structure is still needed to order these works.
“The experience acquired during the last eruption on the island of La Palma constitutes a solid foundation for the implementation of the National Plan for Seismic, Volcanological Surveillance and other Geophysical Phenomena, the preparation of which will be carried out by a working group led by the Institute National Geographic (...) competent in matters of surveillance and earthquake-volcanic alert”, develops the standard.
Currently, the institution in charge of volcanic surveillance in Spain is the IGN, which has an office with about 15 people in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the capital of the island, dedicated to monitoring seismic and volcanic phenomena in the archipelago.
However, the address of the Geophysical Observatory is located at the Madrid headquarters of the institution.
In Tenerife there are also many of the researchers from the CSIC and the University of La Laguna who were deployed in La Palma during the crisis and it is the headquarters of Involcan, a public company promoted by the Cabildo de Tenerife and that the Government of the Canary Islands decided to buy during the Cumbre Vieja eruption.
Tenerife is still an active volcanic island and it was precisely a seismic crisis on Mount Teide in 2004 that forced the authorities to develop a volcano surveillance plan in Spain.
The last two Spanish land eruptions have occurred on La Palma, the recent one at Cumbre Vieja and the one at Teneguía in 1971. Since the eruption, La Palma has become a center of scientific and tourist interest in volcanology.
You can follow
MATERIA
on
,
and
, or sign up here to receive
our weekly newsletter
.
