SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, July 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The popular legislative initiative (ILP) of the Volcanoes Law already has close to 13,000 signatures, although its objective is to collect many more than those required for the parliamentary process.
The promoting commission, made up of people affected by the 2021 eruption on La Palma, will set up tables to collect support from July 25 to 27 in another eight municipalities of Tenerife.
The route will begin on Tuesday 25 in Buenavista del Norte, Guía de Isora (municipality that experienced the last eruption on the island, in 1909), Vilaflor and, in the afternoon, Granadilla de Abona.
The following day, the tables with the signature sheets will be located in Garachico (whose port and part of the old city were destroyed by the lava from the 1706 eruption), Icod de los Vinos, Los Realejos and, in the afternoon, the Puertito de Güímar. And on Thursday the 27th, signatures will be collected again in Granadilla de Abona and Güímar.
The bill for which the Parliamentary Bureau has authorized the collection of signatures includes a series of rights for the population affected by future volcanic eruptions (but also, retroactively, for the 2021 eruption in the Aridane Valley), in order to guarantee their socioeconomic recovery.
The reason for this citizen initiative is the verification, in this natural catastrophe that has hit La Palma, that the current legislation is not designed to give a quick and effective response to affected families and companies.
In 2021 there were more than 7,000 evacuees in the Aridane Valley, of which 1,300 continue to be evicted -in Puerto Naos and La Bombilla- and more than 12,000 have requested compensation for damages from the insurance consortium.
The lava buried more than 3,000 buildings, including 1,346 homes, and more than 300 hectares of crops in production, mostly banana trees, the main economic engine of the Isla Bonita.
The ILP promoting commission is convinced that its proposal is of interest to all islands, especially those where new volcanic eruptions may occur. In the case of Tenerife, the risk planning approved by the Cabildo contemplates that more than 60,000 people live in areas with a high or very high risk of volcanic risk.
At the foot of volcanic ridges that have erupted in the last thousands of years in Tenerife are also the entire population of the valleys of La Orotava and Güímar (in Arafo there was an eruption in 1705), and of municipalities such as Fasnia and Arico -on whose summits a volcano erupted in 1704-1705), as well as the regions of Icod, Isla Baja and, in the south, the area that goes from Guía de Isora to Santiago del Teide.
