SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 28 May. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The director of the National Geographic Institute (IGN) in the Canary Islands, María José Blanco, has clarified that the Pevolca Scientific Committee did not include in its report the imminent risk of an eruption due to seismicity in La Palma and recalls that the evacuations began to be done before the eruption started.
This has been pointed out in a statement, after his intervention in the Study Commission on the effects of the volcanic crisis and reconstruction on the island of La Palma developed in the Parliament of the Canary Islands.
According to Blanco, “at the meeting of the Pevolca Scientific Committee on September 19, 2021, each participating institution presented the analysis of the information available to each one, making a forecast.”
In that presentation, he indicated, “all the institutions agreed that the process could have a short-term evolution, but no agreement was reached on whether this period was hours or days, and the qualification of the eruption as imminent”.
For this reason, Blanco added, “it was decided that the following wording be established in the Scientific Committee’s report: The process continues and may have a rapid evolution in the short term. At this time, the process is in a pre-eruptive phase, with a greater probability that it will culminate in an eruption, without evidence, at this time, that would allow us to establish a temporary window”.
The director of the IGN in the Canary Islands has clarified that the Pevolca Management Committee “made its decisions based on the reports agreed by the Scientific Committee”.
Remember, in any case, that the evacuations began before the start of the eruption and the traffic light changed and that they had been prepared by means of informative talks held days before the eruption, in the apparently most threatened places.
