Five years after the Tajogaite volcano erupted on the Canary Island of La Palma, residents say the pain of what happened on 19 September 2021 has not faded. The eruption buried entire neighbourhoods under lava, destroyed more than a thousand agricultural plots and forced thousands of people from their homes. Today the island is rebuilding, but many of those affected describe a recovery that remains incomplete and, for some, impossible to accept.
Tara and Ubay were evacuated as the lava advanced towards their home. Tara was eight months pregnant at the time. «We did not know whether we were going to lose the house to that lava flow,» she says, pointing to the wall of solidified rock that stopped at the edge of their property. The house survived, but part of their banana plantation did not. Ubay explains that one section of the farm was swallowed by the lava, while the rest went without water for more than a year, forcing the family to uproot it and start again from nothing.
Across the island, more than a thousand farms were destroyed. Only 37 percent of them have been recovered so far. New roads and homes are being built on top of the lava, but whole neighbourhoods have disappeared for good. Carlos built a house on the same flow that buried his former property. Looking out over the black landscape, he recalls that the view once held nothing but neighbours. Now the terrain is dark and almost empty, with a few half-buried houses and some new construction rising from the rock.
Five years on, exclusion zones remain in place because of high concentrations of volcanic gases. Eva's house is in one of those areas, in La Bombilla. She says she is not allowed to enter, probably because of the gases, and that the property is full of volcanic sand. She has been living in a container home for about three years, waiting for social housing until she can return to her own house. In La Bombilla and Puerto Naos, firefighters carry out daily gas measurements in the restricted areas, sealing siphon pots and drainage pipes as part of mitigation work, according to the head of the La Palma fire service.
Compensation has reached many of those who lost their primary homes, but residents say the payments often fall short. Marcelino, a neighbourhood representative in La Laguna, explains that the compensation is calculated on 2021 values. A house that cost 100,000 euros then cannot be built today for even 300,000, he says. A recent study has also revealed health consequences linked to the volcanic gases. Alberto Ruano, a professor of preventive medicine and public health at the University of Santiago de Compostela, describes persistent and incurable respiratory conditions among many residents.
Alongside the physical damage, a deep sense of grief persists. «The feeling remains and the pain is still there. We older people will not forget it; we will carry this with us,» Marcelino says. La Palma is gradually emerging from the ashes of the volcano, but what happened on 19 September 2021 will never be erased from the memory of its people.