Mount Teide, Tenerife, Spain

Risks from volcanic activity increasing

According to reports in local newspapers Canarias 7 and La Opinion, Nemesio Perez, president of the Spanish Volcanological Society, has affirmed that the possible dangers from volcanic activity in the archipelago are rising.

Increased pressure on the environment and lack of awareness, positive action and adequate monitoring of the situation are all causing concern in the scientific community here and in Spain.

The Basic Planning for Civil Protection Directive of 1996 stated that the one region Spain presently at risk from volcanic activity is the Canary Islands. This is due to being the only area where there have been eruptions in the last 500 years, three of them having taken place during the last century.

Regardless of this official recognition Perez criticised the fact that, to date, neither the State Plan, nor the Special Emergency Plan regarding Volcanic Risk in the Canary Islands has been formed, despite the urgent need for them being cited in the 1996 directive.

Secondly, the Canarian Volcanological Institute (IVC) has still not been created, even though the high priority proposal was accepted unanimously by all political parties, both here and in Spain, in 2005 and 2006.

This apparent lack of concern of the risks may be due to a combination of circumstances. Amongst these Perez stated that many people view the possibility of an eruption as being minimum, due to their relative infrequency.

Also, there is an erroneous belief that recent eruptions haven’t caused any deaths, when in fact there are 22 known fatalities according to Doctor Carmen Romero from La Laguna University.

Added to this is the conviction that volcanic eruptions in the islands are relatively calm. They may have been over the last 500 years, but this does not take into account that colossal eruptions have taken place before that.

Last, but not least, is the failure to recognize the different effect that an eruption now would have, due to population growth and land usage. For instance, in 1909, when the last eruption took place in Tenerife, there were 137,302 habitants. Presently there are almost 900,000. Cities and towns cover the island in great swathes and an eruption could easily affect many tens of thousands of people and the damage be significantly greater than before.