La Palma volcano shoots lava up into the air, enveloping roads in the Spanish Canary Island

A volcano erupted on the Spanish Canary Island of La Palma on Sunday, sending fountains of lava and a plume of smoke and ash into the air from the Cumbre Vieja national park in the south of the island.

Video footage showed lava erupting from the volcano, with large clouds of smoke rising into the air.

Authorities had already begun evacuating the infirm and some farm animals from the surrounding villages before the eruption, which took place on a wooded slope in the Cabeza de Vaca area at 3:15 p.m.

Immediately after the eruption, the municipality urged residents in a statement to "exercise extreme caution," and stay away from the area and off the roads.

The population of nearby villages were told to go to one of five centres to be evacuated, and soldiers were deployed to help.

There had been more than 22,000 tremors this week in the Cumbre Vieja area, a chain of volcanoes that last had a major eruption in 1971 and is one of the most active volcanic regions in the Canaries.

For more info, please go to https://globalnews.ca/news/8202550/earthquake-threat-evacuations-spain/

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