The footprint of the La Palma volcano: images of a convulsive year

"There is time to eat without problem."

It was just a few minutes after three in the afternoon of September 19, 2021. A volcano had just exploded in La Palma, and the video in which a neighbor tried to calm down his family —and not miss out on lunch— while Hundreds of meters from their noses, the earth vomited lava and pyroclasts, it did not take long to reach the most remote WhatsApp group.

"It's okay that an eruption is going to change our lives forever," that voice-over seemed to want to say, "but we'll have time to worry about that later."

It was the palm phlegm, the same one that continues to stoically bear the scars of the eruption almost a year later.

It is true that it no longer takes two hours to cover a journey that used to require 20 minutes;

that 116 homes have been delivered, 149 promotions are underway, in addition to another 120 prefabricated houses already purchased.

The State claims to have delivered 532 million euros in aid.

And among the ashes, small miracles appear, such as the promotion to Segunda B of Atlético Paso, the soccer team whose playing field was used for much of the season for the classification of those affected and the distribution of aid.

The anguish persists, however.

Nearly two hundred people remain homeless;

Puerto Naos, one of the main tourist centers, continues to be evacuated due to the presence of gases;

and as expected, banana production has plummeted and has made its price verge on the prohibitive in the midst of inflation.

The hours and days always seemed to pass more slowly on La Palma than on the rest of an increasingly accelerated planet.

It has not transpired if the voices of the video finished lunch that September 19.

Or even if they keep the house.

But that family's is, precisely, the task that palmeros have before them: that there be time to live again.

December 2021. Cloud of smoke from the Cumbre Vieja volcano seen from Roque de los Muchachos, the highest point on the island.Eduardo Nave

Multidisciplinary sports facilities in the neighborhood of Las Manchas, in El Paso.

This court has been buried for months by volcanic ash.

The image is from April of this year. Eduardo Nave

January 2022. Las Manchas neighborhood (El Paso), about 300 meters from one of the mouths of the volcano.

Here before there were houses and crops.Eduardo Nave

January 2022. Plantation of banana trees damaged by volcanic ash and unrecoverable.Eduardo Nave

April 2022. Water tank in Los Llanos de Aridane, dedicated to crops, where the laundry reached the limit.Eduardo Nave

Tourists photograph the Cumbre Vieja volcano from the Tajuya viewpoint, in November 2021.Eduardo Nave

November 1, 2021. Small tornado in the main lava of the Cumbre Vieja volcano, from the Tajuya viewpoint. Eduardo Nave

January 2022. Las Manchas neighborhood, in El Paso, one of the most affected areas.

To remove ashes from a garden, 15 trucks are needed.Eduardo Nave

Another image of the neighborhood of Las Manchas, in January of this year.

Impractical areas are expropriated by the State.Eduardo Nave

The Cumbre Vieja volcano and the main lava flow, photographed in April of this year, from the mountain of La Laguna (Tazacorte). Eduardo Nave