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"

Everything is destroyed.

We have lost everything of our beloved island. It is very sad.

Inge and I

are devastated."

On the other end of the phone, with a throat that will not go away during the entire conversation, the lilting voice of

Rainer Cocq

is heard

.

He is the owner, together with his wife,

Inge Bergedorf

, of what many called La Palma's 'miracle house'.

It was a symbol of hope in the midst of so much pain and devastation caused by

the Cumbre Vieja volcano

.

An image of the house taken with a drone by Alfonso Escalero, a member of the collective of photographers and videographers 'I Love This World', went around the world last week: the cute and tiny house of this Danish couple had been surrounded by

tons of lava expelled by the Cumbre Vieja volcano.

The magma, on its way down towards the coast, had left it

intact

, sitting on a small elevation of the land that made it resemble ancient Roman fortresses.

But the 'miracle' lasted only a few days.

The voracity of nature does not understand concessions.

On the morning of this Tuesday, the couple told

Chronicle

exclusively by phone

that the magma of the Cumbre Vieja has also ended up devouring the 45 square meters of their small country house,

Inge's garden with its palm trees and its dragon trees

,

the 3,000 meters of Rainer's vineyards

whose grapes were soon to be cut ...

"Part of our lives have been lost with it," says the man, a retired businessman who speaks four languages, including Spanish, although he has the least command of it.

Rainer and Inge reside in Fredericia, a Danish municipality on the Jutland peninsula in the eastern part of the country.

They have three daughters.

One resides in New Mexico (USA).

The other two, in Germany, where his father's company headquarters are located.

Yenny Cocq, one of them, laments on her Facebook profile about the loss of the house where they so often were as babies and then as adults with their parents.

"It would have been something special to have had

an island among the waves of the liquid ocean of land blood

(...) but unfortunately ...".

His sister Hillen adds in the same social network: "We discovered that the house no longer exists (...) We knew that the possibilities were slim."

Both have launched a crowdfunding campaign to collect donations to help the palm trees financially.

If the volcano had not erupted, this retired octogenarian couple would already be packing their bags to leave the cold Danish autumn and

take refuge in the warm climate of La Palma

.

"We used to go in October and November to collect the grapes that we have in our vineyards. But now there is nothing left. [The magma] first swallowed the vines.

Now it has also devoured our home,

" says its owner.

Rainer Cocq.

The grapes that Rainer ordered to be picked were then taken to the winery of his "great friend" Julio Sánchez León, a resident of the island. But it will never be possible again. "His winery, which was private, has also been destroyed. It was before the lava reached my house. Julio has lost everything. His home was in Las Manchas (a population center belonging to Llanos de Aridane), on the highway from On the way to Todoque.

He was at the foot of the volcano. We feel very sad.

He had to go to another nearby people's home, "explains Rainer Cocq.

The couple bought three decades ago a land of more than 3,000 square meters in El Paraíso, another scattered nucleus of Llanos de Aridane.

Ada Monnikendam

, a Dutch woman who settled on La Palma in 1976, designed and built the house with her company, together with her husband and a brother-in-law.

Being rustic land, they could hardly build.

Although it wasn't Rainer and Inge's obsession, either.

Ada, a friend of the couple, says that Rainer is fond of volcanoes and geology.

"That's why they first thought about buying the house in Hawaii. Finally, they decided on La Palma."

The magma-devoured house consisted of a living room-bedroom, a kitchen and a small room that Rainer and Inge filled with mattresses when they traveled with their daughters or had visits from friends.

"The house was really just for sleeping," says Rainer.

"We lived on the streets.

My wife spent the day in her garden. I enjoyed the good people of La Palma and my neighbors in El Paraíso.

Now I am very sorry for them - they are mostly foreigners from the center of Europe-. I have spoken with some and they tell me that they have also been left with nothing. "

Inge Bergedorf turned 80 on September 25.

His daughter Hillen posted on her Facebook profile: "The family is here together in Denmark."

But he added something else: "

Our hearts are now on La Palma

."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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