Ben Pawlowski
OVER 1,000 residents will be evacuated from their homes later this month when authorities in Tenerife carry out the island’s largest-ever volcano eruption drill.
The trial will take place from 22-28 September in Garachico, a northwest region of Tenerife considered to be the area at highest risk from volcanic activity.
The announcement of the planned simulation comes just days after local seismological stations recorded a series of ‘unusually shallow’ earthquakes near the surface of Mount Teide, Spain’s highest point and the third highest volcano in the world.
According to El Guayota, a social media page that records seismic activity in the Canary Islands, Tenerife recorded 72 earthquakes last week, reaching a maximum magnitude of 2.2.
One of the tremors with a magnitude of 1.8 occurred just 1km below the surface of Mount Teide, a stratovolcano 3,715 metres in elevation above sea level which last erupted in 1909.
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Gas levels are also 2.6 times above the normal level, indicating changes in volcanic activity below the surface.
Local authorities believe the increased seismic activity is nothing to worry about and remain keen to emphasise that there is no imminent threat of eruption.
“This is not about creating alarm,” said Rosa Davila, the president of Tenerife’s governing body, “but about having a common strategy to protect lives and keep people informed.”
“This is a brave decision calling for calm because the risk is not going to disappear,” she stressed at a press conference last week.
“We must not forget that we are volcanically active islands although we are not at all facing an imminent situation of volcanic emergency neither in the short nor in the medium term.”
Tenerife vulcanologist Luca D’Auria said the island remains in a ‘period of calm’, explaining that current seismic activity ‘fits within normality’.
According to D’Auria, the director of volcanic monitoring agency Involcan, there is an estimated 40% likelihood of an eruption in Tenerife within the next 50 years, and a 63% possibility over the next century.
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“The risk is increasing, not because the volcano is more active, but because of more infrastructure and a larger population exposed to potential hazards,” D’Auria explained.
Authorities hope this month’s week-long drill will be an opportunity to raise awareness and improve the ways in which emergency communication and evacuation would work in case of a real-life volcanic eruption.
During the exercise, residents across Tenerife will receive a test alert message on their mobile phones via the ES-Alert system, simulating a ‘red-alert’ volcanic eruption scenario.
Evacuation exercises will then take place in Garachico involving the military, emergency services, local authorities and the Red Cross, all supported by universities and local meteorological and seismological agencies.
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