Luis G. Morera
Las Manchas (La Palma) Apr 3 (EFE).- During the 85 days that the eruption of La Palma lasted in September 2021, the inhabitants of the Aridane Valley watched helplessly as the lava flows besieged the Las Manchas cemetery for weeks and ended up for burying a good part of their graves under the lava.
The “Nuestra Señora de Los Ángeles” cemetery, named after the tradition of imposing as titular saint the one corresponding to the name of the first deceased, is in the part of Las Manchas within Los Llanos de Aridane, it has an area of 1,000 square meters and houses some 3,000 people buried in the 5,800 niches that existed before the eruption.
Since September 19, 2021, the day the volcano erupted, two cemeteries were threatened: the municipal one in Tazacorte and the municipal one in Los Llanos de Aridane, the latter being the one that was partially affected when the volcanic activity seemed to begin to subside. .
Today, fifteen months after the volcano went out, access to the cemetery is limited by a metal fence a few meters from the lava flow, covered with flower arrangements from visitors who cannot reach their loved ones, and a vast layer of ash covers as far as the eye can see.
The Los Llanos de Aridane City Council focuses its efforts on relocating the remains whose niches resisted the action of the laundries, but which now have restricted access, as well as on the cemetery reconstruction project, at a cost of 1.2 million euros.
At present, 80 remains have been transferred from the niches partially affected by the lava to the blocks located in the furthest part of the cemetery lava flows, unless the relatives request the transfer to another cemetery.
The mayoress of the municipality, Noelia García Leal, has explained to EFE that they have “50% of the financing for the reconstruction of the cemetery, 600,000 euros from the Ministry of Territorial Policy, but until they have the other half”, they cannot get to contest the work.
García Leal recalls how, during the eruption of the volcano, the City Council gave families the opportunity to remove the remains of their deceased, although not the coffins.
“Some email came to me asking for the exhumation of a relative, but with an active volcano next door, it was impossible, and I really felt it,” says the mayoress.
“My family is under the lava of the volcano and, although the mourning depends on each person, I live it naturally, because it was a natural catastrophe and they are there and in my memory,” he comments, pointing to the niches covered with badlands.
The mayoress has highlighted that within the Tourism Sustainability Plan presented this Monday there will be “an item for monuments and routes to memory, which is what they want to design to, in some way, remember the loved ones who were left under the lava of the volcano and that there is a space for them”.
Meanwhile, the City Council continues with the work to exhume and relocate the dead who avoided the action of the volcano, with the hope of, as soon as possible, returning a place for eternal rest to the past, present, and future deceased of the municipality.
