Eruptive activity remains elevated, dominated by strong ash emissions reaching up to 18,000 ft (5.5 km) altitude today, but fortunately drifting west over the Atlantic ocean and sparing the airport. Local sources reported loud explosions could be heard over night. The eruption has been becoming increasingly „ashy“, or explosive, at least when it comes to what can be seen at the vents:
At the active cone, the emission of incandescent, fluid lava by fountaining and lava flows is less intense compared to previous days, but volcanic tremor remains very high, suggesting that the effusion rate has not dropped. The most likely explanation is not that activity has decreased, but that most of the fluid lava erupted is diverted directly into a lava tube system and mostly remains hidden from view, until it emerges somewhere downslope to feed surface flows on top of older flows or create new active flow tongues along its margins.
In fact, active lava flows continued to advance at various fronts over the past 24 hours as well, most notably feeding the southern arm (red in the attached map), which was very close to the sea shore near Puerto Naos yesterday; it is unclear whether it has already created a second sea entry south of the existing one,but it looks as if has not.
For the local communities, it can be hoped that as much as possible of the lava goes into the ocean rather than continuing to destroy new land areas, but unfortunately, nothing can be done rather than to watch and wait.
Vuelo #3D sobre la evolución de la colada de lava, con datos de @CopernicusEMS, desde el día 24 hasta ayer día 29 a las 08:08.#EMSR546 #erupcionlapalma #VolcandeLaPalma #LaPalma #VigilanciaLaPalma pic.twitter.com/Y7lmnqZn59
— Pedro Suárez x-y.es (@x_y_es) October 30, 2021
As of yesterday, the latest data published are 970.0 ha of land covered by lava flows (23.5 ha added in 24h), and 2,562 destroyed buildings (30 more during 24 hours).
Earthquakes on the other hand have decreased significantly, with less than 100 events of magnitudes between magnitudes 2.4-3.5 during the past 24 hours.
Deformation of the ground remains stable. Following yesterday’s deep magnitude 5 quake, no quakes larger than 3.5 have since occurred.
It is impossible to draw concise conclusions; however, the presence of strong tremor and the relative drop in quake activity could mean that the plumbing system is in a phase where magma is rising from its deeper sources to the surface encountering less obstacles at the moment. In other words, less quakes don’t mean at all that the eruption has slowed down.
