La Palma volcano is unlikely to affect Irish tourists to the Canaries

The first volcanic eruption on the Canary Islands for almost half a century is unlikely to affect Irish tourists. Travel agents in this country tend not to send people to the island of La Palma, and Irish people travelling to the other islands in the Canaries should not have to change their plans.

Some 5,000 residents of La Palma, the most north-westerly island in the Canaries archipelago, have been forced to flee their homes , along with 500 tourists, but there have been no reported fatalities.

Since the eruption on Sunday, there has been dramatic footage of lava being shot hundreds of metres into the air, engulfing houses and forests, and sending molten rock towards the Atlantic Ocean over a sparsely populated area of the island.

The Spanish tourism authority, however, has played down the impact of the volcano. According to its Dublin office, only 500 or so Irish people visited the Island throughout all of 2019.

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“It is important to note that there has been no loss of human life in this event and all local residents who may have been vulnerable have been evacuated away from the path of the lava,” a spokeswoman said.

“The location of this volcanic eruption is in the municipality of El Paso, in the south of the island. With a population of 85,000, the island is also a Starlight Reserve destination for astronomy activities. Under 500 Irish tourists visited the island of La Palma in 2019.”

The head of the Irish Travel Agents Association Pat Dawson echoed the view of the Spanish authorities. “It wouldn’t be a place that we would be sending people to although there might be some people there on a DIY basis, but it would be highly unlikely there would big numbers.”

Mr Dawson said his organisation had received no reports of Irish tourists on the island. “I would be shocked if there were Irish people there to be honest,” he said.