Scientists deny the volcano's 'blackout': "We don't help anyone by giving false hope"

• The nightmare of paying the mortgage on a house eaten by the volcano.

  "The banks take advantage of our misfortune"

• Domitian the invincible, six decades of struggle against the catastrophe on La Palma.

  "I am calmer here than at home"

Like every morning, Salvador wipes the ash from the awning of his tent when, suddenly, he interrupts the gathering of three neighbors sitting on a bench.

"Have you seen the news?" He asks.

"This morning they said that the

starting to be tired.

."

After 47 days of uninterrupted eruption, the palm trees are clinging to any indication that the Cumbre Vieja volcano will soon stop spitting lava.

And, this Tuesday, statements by the experts of the Canary Islands Volcanic Emergency Plan (Pevolca) unleashed a certain euphoria on the island.

"

" said its spokesperson, Carmen López.

Many interpreted these words as an omen that the eruption is already accelerating towards its inexorable end.

But nothing is so easy in a discipline like volcanology, in which dozens of physicists, geologists, chemists,

and engineers join forces to try to anticipate the behavior of the

even for a few hours.

"

and, for now, we have to wait before

victory", warns

, the head geologist of the National Geographic Institute (IGN) and one of the first to predict the eruption, during a break from the Pevolca meeting on Wednesday.

So let's go to the data. There are, basically,

: the emission of gases such as sulfur dioxide (SO2), the number of earthquakes recorded, the tremor generated by the magma as it rises, the deformation of the surrounding terrain. of the cone and the total amount of material that is emitted, whether in the form of lava, ash or pyroclasts. "In reality, all these factors are interrelated and help us to measure the eruption from different angles," explains Alicia Felpeto, from the IGN.

In recent days, both the S02 that the Canary Islands Volcanological Institute (Involcan) monitors and the

that the IGN measures have fallen to values ​​of the middle of October.

That is to say, when the eruption of La Palma was in a somewhat more stable period than last week, but

definitive

that so many yearn for.

"We have gone from counting 15,000 tons of SO2 per day to 9,000 at the beginning of the week," says José Luis Barrera, from the Official College of Geologists.

"It is a positive sign, yes. But until we are a few days in figures close to 500 tons per day we will not be able to intuit that the end is near."

Also the

has given relatively positive news: from 200 daily earthquakes it has gone to about 50 or 60. However, the intensity of the earthquakes continues at maximum levels, which indicates that the magma continues to press to surface. "

" says Jose Mangas, a geologist at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

If such caution sounds frustrating, it is because it is. Despite the fact that more than a hundred scientists are displaced on the island to closely follow the evolution of the

, volcanology has a component of uncertainty that is impossible to avoid. "

except one thing: that a volcano has erupted", admits, not without some annoyance, Alicia Felpeto.

Even so, all the experts agree on one thing: we will have to

or, on the contrary, reactivates again. "If everything remains the same on Sunday, I would dare to say that by the end of November the volcano could end," says Barrera. "But,

. It is all unpredictable!"

It should be remembered, for example, that on September 27 the volcano experienced an

There were palm trees that almost uncorked the champagne to celebrate the end of the crisis. "But we were very scared because we know that a sudden stop can be followed by a very violent outbreak," says Stavros Meletlidis.

Alicia Felpeto agrees with the cautions of her colleague from IGN.

"Sometimes," he says, "the eruptions

go bump, bang

and suddenly go out."

Others, there are "

in which the volcano

and returns with renewed strength."

Therefore, caution, as irritating as it is to the palm trees, is the only way to maintain the credibility of the scientists.

"

" says Felpeto.

"We have to be very sure before giving any positive news. The opposite would be to play with the feelings of the palmeros, who are having a terrible time."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

• La Palma volcano

• The Palm

• Canary Islands

• science

• HBPR

Cumbre ViejaThe shocking figures after a month of a "manual" eruption of the La Palma volcano

Volcano on La Palma Nemesio, the patriarch of Canarian volcanologists: "The Earth here speaks to us in a different way, volcanoes are wealth"

La Palma volcanoThe volcanic family of the Canary Islands that lives under the sea: 130 million-year-old grandmothers and embryos 'ready' to be born

See links of interest

• La Palma volcano live

• Last News

• Holidays 2021

• 2022 business calendar

• Home THE WORLD TODAY

• Master data new narratives

• What

• Milan - FC Porto

• Real Madrid - Shakhtar Donetsk

• Borussia Dortmund - Ajax

• Liverpool - Atlético de Madrid

• Manchester City - Club Brugge