El Heirro, the smallest of the Canary Islands has started to erupt. Not much to see, the current eruption is on the sea floor, about 600 to 1000 meters deep and a few kilometers off shore. However, the eruption could move north, on shore in the next days or weeks. Authorities have evacuated 500 people from a coastal village on the south of the Island, that's closest to the eruption.
Here is a link where the volcanic activity is monitored:
El Hierro Volcanic Activity
Irish Weather Online is also doing a good job of explaining what's happening:
Irish Weather Online - News and Irish Weather Online - News
There was 9,600 earthquakes since June, and the entire island grew like a gigantic blister, it swelled by 3.5 centimeters as the magma chamber, 11 to 18 km underground, filled up with magma.
I don't know how long this eruption will last. An eruption on Lanzarote (one of the Canary Islands) lasted for 6 years, from 1730 to 1736, that eruption caused a severe famine. The authorities didn't evacuate the island for political reasons.
There's lots of speculation that El Hierro might collapse into the sea, cause a giant landslide and mega-tsunami. However, a colleague of mine did his PhD on the subject of La Palma and landslides (a nearby Island). He told me, if El Hierro ever collapsed, and that's highly unlikely, it would collapse towards the east and send a tsunami towards a very sparsely populated part of North Africa.
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12 Oct 2011, 12:03 am
