Horror and relief are currently close together on the Canary Island of La Palma.

While the small San Nicolás church in Las Manchas was cleared before the lava masses reached it, a Danish retired couple could hardly believe their luck.

The electricity had miraculously flowed around their holiday home.

Video footage showed how it remained undamaged amid the devastation caused by the eruption in the El Paraíso district.

Hans-Christian Rößler

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

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By Friday, almost 400 buildings had been destroyed below the volcano that erupted on Sunday. The lava now covers an area of ​​180 hectares. Their flow rate had recently slowed despite increasing explosions at the crater. Scientists at the University of La Laguna no longer rule out that the mountain of Todoque could prevent the lava from reaching the sea.

On the island, the strong ash rain, which also reached the neighboring islands of El Hierro, La Gomera and Tenerife on Friday, is causing problems for the inhabitants. Authorities called on residents to wear FFP2 masks and protect their eyes. Snow plows were used to clear the black pavement from the streets. The ash also affects the telescopes of the observatory on the Roque de los Muchachos. The Institute of Astrophysics stopped work to prevent damage to the mirrors.

The volcano also emits between 6,000 and more than 11,000 tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere every day, according to the Volcanological Institute of the Canary Islands.

On Friday, according to predictions by the European Copernicus atmosphere monitoring service, the cloud should initially spread over the Mediterranean region and cover large parts of mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands, southern France, North Africa, Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily as well as western and southern Italy.

In the course of the weekend it will probably also reach Germany.

Since the sulfur cloud is at a high altitude, it will have no impact on the air quality on earth.

Air traffic in the Canary Islands has not been affected by the outbreak either.