La Palma island braces for more quakes as volcano roars on

LOS LLANOS DE ARIDANE, Canary Islands — Residents connected Spain’s La Palma land braced Wednesday for the anticipation of bigger earthquakes that could compound the harm from a volcano spilling lava much than 5 weeks since it erupted.

Seismologists said a 4.6 magnitude earthquake shook the land a time aft they recorded a 4.9 magnitude quake that was the strongest truthful acold of the hundreds that person occurred nether La Palma since the volcano’s Sept. 19 eruption.

So far, the earthquakes person either been tiny capable oregon acold capable nether La Palma to bash nary harm, different than adding to the anxiousness of the land residents. The Tuesday earthquake was felt up to 60 miles (96 kilometers) distant connected 3 different segments of the Canary Islands, an archipelago disconnected northwest Africa.

“The technological committee has been informing for much than a week that we could spot earthquakes, fixed their caller extent of astir 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) and their magnitude, that scope a magnitude of 6 (on the Richter scale),” María José Blanco, manager of Spain’s National Geographic Institute connected the Canary Islands, told Spanish nationalist broadcaster RTVE.

Flows of molten stone from the Cumbre Vieja volcano itself person caused the evacuations of astir 7,500 radical and destroyed much than 2,000 buildings, mostly homes. The rivers of lava screen implicit 900 hectares (2,200 acres) of mostly farmland, portion 1 large travel is extending the land into the Atlantic arsenic it cools.

No deaths person resulted from the eruption. Other than successful an country connected the island’s occidental side, beingness continues arsenic mean for La Palma’s 85,000 residents but for having to cleanable up volcanic ash.

The past eruption connected the island, successful 1971, lasted 24 days. Its longest, successful 1949, lasted 47 days. The existent enactment is connected time 39 and shows nary signs of stopping.

“We saw the worst-case script successful the 1949 eruption, erstwhile a 2nd volcano rima opened up and chopped disconnected the confederate portion of the island, which had to beryllium supplied by boat,” volcano idiosyncratic Vicente Soler said. “That is highly improbable, though not impossible, today.”

Wilson reported from Barcelona.