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THE INDEPENDENT ENGLISH LANGUAGE NEWSPAPER WITH LOCAL, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL NEWS
FRIDAY 14th OCTOBER TO THURSDAY 27th OCTOBER 2016 TV GUIDE
PAGES 25 -32
MOVIES AT ...
EDITION 561 FORTNIGHTLY SUPPLEMENT F
property p
PAGES 49 -56
guide
“STOP PUTTING OFF OUR VISITORS TO
Photo: Moises Perez
SAFE TENERIFE!”
Anger at alarm created by micro quakes under Mount Teide
T
HE British press might have helped to publicise the delights of Tenerife over the years but the latest batch of “sensationalised” reporting has led to a reprimand from the Canaries. It’s correct that on October 2nd, a series of underground earthquakes were recorded in the area of Mount Teide which last erupted in 1909. What wasn’t true, however, were the claims by some of the UK tabloid press that it was about to explode again, with headlines such as “Panic on Tenerife” and “Tenerife’s famous volcano to erupt at midnight!” Some of the papers even ran stories about whether or not holidaymakers planning a trip to the island could get their money back or not! On Monday of this week, president of the Canary Government, Fernando Clavijo
made no bones about how he felt about the situation, saying the alarm created by the reports “did a disservice” to Tenerife. He said he was “abhorred” by “this kind of journalism” and very much lamented the treatment of the earthquake episode. He stressed that the Canary Government had been well in control of the situation and had immediately called a meeting with top scientists to discuss what had caused the seismic movements and to continue to monitor the situation. The earthquakes, the strongest of which was 1.5 on
the Richter scale, happened in the area of Adeje, Arico, La Guancha, Icod and Vilaflor. The Volcanology Institute of the Canaries sent technicians to the area. Despite what was reported in the UK press, they said no-one actually felt any movements. However, the quakes certainly did happen and the number is now being put at around 400, rather than 80, as first thought. A spokesman from Involvan said at the time: “”In principle, these earthquakes are ver y low magnitude, consistent with those that occur in active volcanoes. The number of earthquakes is provisional pending the analysis of the signals more closely, but we can already qualify this activity as a seismic swarm whose pattern is an alignment with predominant NE-SW direction.” The comprehensive study was being carried out by the National Geographic Institute which runs the volcano monitoring in Canary Islands. Two new seismic stations
were also set up in the vicinity of the area of the Teide-Pico Viejo. There is ongoing debate about whether the quakes, which were spread over a number of hours, were a oneoff activity associated with a volcano or an indication of something else or even more to come. One Involcan scientist says there are similarities with movemets recorded in Tenerife in 2004 and “also share characteristics observed in other active volcanoes in the world.” What the experts have said, however, is that Mount Teide is NOT about to explode (and
certainly not at midnight on October 3rd!) and tourists had no reason to worry. Tourism chiefs assured that even if such an event was to happen, scientists would know very much in advance because there was constant monitoring. “Due to its volcanic origin, Tenerife is continuously monitored and any seismic activity associated with magma would be detected in the very early stages,” said the Tenerife Tourism Corporation. “It is worth pointing out that the last volcanic eruption that took place on the island happened over 100 years ago, causing no personal injuries of
any kind.” “Therefore, everything is calm as usual in Tenerife. There have been no changes related to these micro earthquakes and there are no current risks. Everyday life remains the same in the island’s cities, towns and tourists areas - the situation is totally safe.” “The Tenerife Tourism Corporatio advises obtaining information exclusively from official sources rather than from sensational articles in order to avoid unnecessary fear and confusion.”