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ARCHIVED - La Palma remains on yellow alert for seismic activity
Almost 21,000 earthquakes have been recorded in less than a week on the Canary Island
The Scientific Committee of the Special Plan for Civil Protection and Attention to Emergencies due to Volcanic Risk (Pevolca) has recommended on Thursday September 16 that the volcanic alert for the island of La Palma remain at a yellow level in the Cumbre Vieja area, covering the municipalities of Fuencaliente, Los Llanos of Aridane, El Paso and Mazo. In addition, the committee has not ruled out extending or amplifying this alert due to the worrying amount of seismic activity in the area in recent days.
According to the experts, the amount of activity has actually decreased slightly with earthquakes registering a lower magnitude. Shallow quakes, at a depth of between one and three kilometres and with a low intensity are still occurring at regular intervals, while in the last 12 hours seismic activity at a depth of between four and five kilometres has also been recorded.
Since the seismic activity began to intensify last Saturday on the island, more than 20,650 earthquakes have occurred, although most were so small that their exact location couldn’t even be pinpointed, according to the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands (Involcan).
This succession of movements in the subsoil is known as a seismic swarm and is very common on La Palma: so far in 2021 three have been registered while 2020 ended with five. While the swarm doesn’t necessarily indicate an inevitable volcanic eruption, the problem is that deformation of the soil has now reached 10 centimetres and it is most likely caused by the magma reservoir below the surface pushing upwards to find a way out.
Image: Gobierno de Canarias
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