All flights to and from the Spanish island of La Palma have been cancelled due to ash from the Cumbre Vieja volcano, which has been erupting since September.
Twenty national flights were cancelled on Saturday, said a spokesman for the Spanish airport authority.
Air travel to the island in the Spanish-owned Canaries archipelago, off the Atlantic coast of North Africa, has been regularly affected since the volcano erupted on September 19 for the first time in 50 years.
Lava and smoke rise from the Cumbre Vieja volcano, La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain, 19 November 2021. Today, all flights were cancelled to and from the Spanish island
No one has died in the eruption on the island of 85,000 people, but it caused serious damage and led to the evacuation of more than 7,000 people, with some buildings swallowed by lava flows.
More than 1,000 hectares of land and more than 2,600 buildings were destroyed, according to the European geospatial measurement system, Copernicus.
Provisional damage was estimated on Friday at nearly 900 million euros ($1 billion), according to the region.
During a visit on Friday and Saturday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced new aid for the economy and infrastructure of the island, which depends in particular on tourism and banana cultivation.
The island of La Palma is experiencing its third eruption in a century, after those of the San Juan volcano in 1949 and the Teneguia in 1971.
Scientists have said the latest eruption could last up to three months.
Pictured: Lava streams flow down the side of La Palma towards the ocean on Friday following the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the Canary island. Twenty national flights were cancelled on Saturday, said a spokesman for the Spanish airport authority due to the volcano
Pictured: The Cumbre Vieja volcano, seem on 19 November, 2021 in La Palma, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. The volcano currently has three active fronts
This is not the first time all flights to and from the island have been cancelled, with the same happening earlier this month on November 3.
With flights cancelled, some tourists who went to the island on a sightseeing trip to witness the eruption had to wait in long lines for ferries to leave the island.
Madrid resident, Patricia Privado, 30, described the erupting volcano earlier this month as 'a spectacle of nature'.
'It is worth it,' she said of her trip. 'To hear it roar, to see how the lava falls. You have to experience it.'
Leon
