THE air quality over La Palma has improved so much over the last few days that a resumption of classes on the island has been allowed.
The Ministry of Education announced on Tuesday, November 9, that face-to-face classes can resume on Wednesday, November 10, in the educational centres of Los Llanos de Aridane, El Paso, Tazacorte, Puntagorda and Tijarafe, after being closed for a week and forced to resume to online teaching due to poor air conditions.
This decision was taken after an improvement in air quality over the five municipalities, which have gone from extremely unfavourable to favourable over the last few days due to a lowering in the amount of PM10 particles (very small particles found in dust and smoke) present in the air.
Educational sources have advised they will move all activity from the outside to the inside of the schools and reduce any physical activities like sports or gymnasium workouts to 30 minutes. On Monday, November 1, the Canarian Ministry of Education made the decision to suspend face-to-face classes due to the low air quality in La Palma which came into effect the following day.
The reactivation of lava flows 1 and 2 of the La Palma volcano over the last hours has raised the number of hectares of land affected by the volcano’s lava to 996.6, according to the latest update carried out by the European Copernicus satellite system. The number of destroyed buildings has also increased to 2,605, which is ten more than in the previous count carried out at noon on Tuesday, November 9. Three extra kilometres of roads have also been destroyed by the lava, bringing the total to 77.4 Km of roads out of action and unusable.
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