© Pixabay
140 Earthquakes Detected On the Island of La Palma
140 Earthquakes Detected On the Island of La Palma
The seismic swarms are being monitored by the Canary Islands Volcanological Institute (Involcan), that is operated by The Canary Islands Seismic Network. They have detected a new swarm of quakes below La Palma's Cumbre Vieja volcano.
As of around 4 am on Monday morning a grand total of 138 seismic events had already been detected. They have registered in at depths varying between 15 and 20 kilometres under the western slope the Cumbre Vieja volcano. The maximum magnitude that has been recorded so far has been 1.8 on the Richter scale.
According to Involcan both visitors to La Palma and local residents are not in any danger and should not be worried about the seismic swarm, as the depth of the earthquakes combined with the small magnitudes is not currently any cause for concern. What has been requested though is that the population keep aware of their environment and ensure they are fully aware of what to do if the volcanic activity starts to change.
Comment: According to a paper published in 2001, geological evidence suggests that a future eruption at Cumbre Vieja volcano could cause a catastrophic failure of its west flank and produce a 10-25m tsunami that would inundate the coast of Florida: See also: Landslide induced mega-tsunami 'could happen at anytime' at Alaska's Barry Glacier