Los Llanos de Aridane: For weeks they dreamed of returning to the house they took out when the volcano erupted on the island of Spain La Palma.
Now after they finally dripped back to them, their excitement was angry by finding everything that was covered in the sea of ​​Abu.
“This is another world,” said Felix Rodriguez, a 61-year-old mason, when he swept ash from the roof of his house to the terrace below.
He was one of about 1,000 people who were allowed to return to their home this week, out of a total of 7,000 evacuated after the Vieja Cumbre volcano erupted on September 19, spewing lava and a thick ash to the air.
But like many others, he won’t be able to return to his house soon.
In addition to blocking the door and lane with a pile of ash, the lava of the eruption of the pipe was damaged, leaving it without running water.
Lava has also blocked the main road in Valley Aridane, forcing the residents of the area to take longer routes around the island for travel for basic services used for only five minutes.
While the red-hot lava miraculously took Rodriguez’s house, it swallowed a neighbor’s grave, leaving only a few visible tombs.
– Terrible – Spanish authorities expressed an eruption officially ended on Christmas day after 10 days without lava flow, earthquake or significant gas emissions.
There are no injuries or deaths directly associated with the eruption on Tiny Island, part of the Canary Islands located on the northwest coast of Africa.
But it destroyed more than 1,300 homes, especially on the west side of La Palma, and covered 1,250 hectares (around 3,100 hectares) of land, including vineyards and banana and avocado plantations.
Carmen Acosta, 57, was one of the lucky ones which on Monday could sleep in their homes again for the first time after staying at the hotel for more than three months.
His parents, who were in his 80s, stayed with him at the blue house, one floor surrounded by fruit trees and had views of the Atlantic Ocean.
“We have a lot of things to be cleaned,” said Acosta, because he was surrounded by a plastic bag full of clothing, food, and medicines he brought by the family.
“Even in six months, it won’t be finished.
There’s a lot of ash, a lot of garbage …
it’s terrible.” In the affected area, the mugs of orange ash and apple trees, make them look like bush.
– Joy and helplessness – Gladys Jeronimo, a 65-year-old housemaid who just retired, has been looking forward to a break after decades working.
“But for now there are all: sadness and cleaning and cleaning,” he said when he swept his terrace.
Jeronimo said he felt “a lot of joy and helplessness at the same time”.
“The joy because it’s over, but it’s helpless because we can’t go back” permanently, because the running water hasn’t been restored, he said.
Mary Zobeida Perez Cabrera, a 68-year-old caregiver, said the second house, who used to belong to his parents, “terrible, like a grave,” because everything was covered in black ash.
“Everything around us is black, no land, no roof, even black plants,” he said when he loaded a cart with ashes.
Ruben Lopez, a geologist with the Spanish geographical Institute, said the wind would blow “many” ash to the sea.
While the surface of the lava has cooled, the current “still holds a lot of heat,” he added.
“It will last week, even months, and besides that they release gas,” he said.
It would be easier to build on the cooled lava than removing it, he added.
– Throwing a towel – like thousands of others, Jorge Diaz Hernandez did not know when he would be allowed to return to his house.
“This is a question of millions of Euros,” said the 36-year-old man by shrugging the shoulder at the top of the mountain in the Municipality of Los Llanos de Aridane.
During the eruption he came regularly to this place to see whether the banana plantations he had run over the past decade had been affected.
It was avoided from lava, but Diaz estimates that it will take three years to restart production due to abu damage.
“I threw a towel, I would dedicate myself to something else,” he said.
“I’m bored by the way farming and bananas are treated, low prices, water costs, all of that.
This is a straw that breaks the camel’s back,” he added.