Lava pours from Canary Islands’ volcano, villages evacuated

The eruption began at 3:15 p.m. (14:15 GMT) on Sunday on a wooded slope in the Cumbre Vieja national park, the government said, Al-Jazeera reported.

Cumbre Vieja is one of the most active volcanic regions in the Canaries and the eruption comes after a week-long buildup of seismic activity, prompting authorities to evacuate thousands of people from nearby settlements.

As darkness fell, video footage showed fountains of lava shooting hundreds of metres into the sky, and at least three incandescent orange rivers of molten rock pouring down the hill, tearing gashes into woods and farmland, and spreading as they reached the lower ground.

One stream, several hundred metres long and tens of metres wide, crossed a road and began engulfing scattered houses in the evacuated village of El Paso. Video footage shared on social media, which the Reuters news agency was unable to verify, showed the lava entering a house.