Nothing can stop the lava flows.

They are up to six meters high and more than 1000 degrees Celsius.

On their way into the valley, they cover 700 meters an hour.

“It's devastating.

The lava literally devours houses, infrastructure and fields, a few minutes ago also a school “, said the chairman of the island council of La Palma, Mariano Hernández Zapato, on Monday morning in a television interview.

Up to 100 houses have probably already been destroyed or damaged since a crack opened up on the flank of the Cumbre Vieja ridge on Sunday afternoon at 3:12 p.m. and the mountain is now spewing fire from eight gullies.

Hans-Christian Rößler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb, based in Madrid.

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More than 5000 people were brought to safety, including several hundred tourists.

Most of them from the towns of El Paso, Tazacorte and Los Llanos de Aridane.

On La Palma, the residents were lucky because the outbreak occurred in an uninhabited forest area in the nature reserve below the Cabeza de Vaca.

After the increasingly violent tremors of the past few days, experts had already expected the first surface volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands in half a century in this area.

The first warnings were issued a week ago.

The inhabitants were prepared;

Not a single person was injured until Monday.

The last outbreak dragged on for a month

"In the next 48 hours we will know how long the eruption will last," said Canarian Regional President Ángel Víctor Torres on Monday.

But he doesn't expect it to last a short time.

He referred to the huge amount of lava that is pushing to the surface: According to Torres, it could be between 17 and 20 million cubic meters.

That would be almost half as much as the last volcanic eruption on La Palma in 1971, which dragged on for almost a month.

Nevertheless, no further rescue operations were planned on Monday, while reinforcement of the disaster control arrived on the island.

Because the risk increases that the glowing masses could ignite fires.

The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez made the volcanic eruption a top priority on Sunday. Instead of flying to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he traveled to the island on Monday night, where he attended the meetings of the crisis team, visited rescued residents and also wanted to visit the disaster area in the afternoon. "We have enough resources and staff, and citizens can rest assured," said Sánchez. The Spanish Ministry of Tourism tried to reassure holidaymakers; Especially among Germans, the island is a popular travel destination in autumn. At the moment there are no restrictions on air traffic, not even for holidaymakers who are going to travel in the next few days.

The island's volcanic landscape attracts many tourists. The "Ruta de los Volcánes" along the ridge of the Cumbre Vieja through solidified lava landscapes is one of the most popular hiking routes. At around two million years old, La Palma is the youngest of the Canary Islands after El Hierro, all of which are of volcanic origin. The Cumbre Vieja divides the island geographically and climatically into the dry, sunny west and the east, which is characterized by the humid air masses of the trade winds.

Although the Spanish name can be translated as "old ridge", the mountain range is geologically younger than the Cumbre Nueva in the north. The south, in which the eruption has now occurred, has not yet fully formed: the last two major volcanic eruptions in the past century had occurred there. Due to the lava masses that flowed into the sea after the eruption of the Tenguía on October 26, 1971, the island at its southern tip became even a little larger. At that time, the volcano, whose extinct crater is now a tourist attraction, did not calm down for almost a month. The eruption of the San Juan volcano in the summer of 1949 dragged on even longer. It lasted from St. John's Day on June 24th to the end of July.

The Cumbre Vieja is the most active volcanic landscape in the Canary Islands. There have now been eight eruptions in the past 600 years. The last time a volcano exploded on the seabed off the neighboring island of El Hierro was in 2011. This many years of experience pays off. The early warning system and the contingency plans are working, people are avoiding the lava. They know from the past that they have to be patient now, because the Canarian volcanoes take their time.