Santa Cruz de Tenerife (EFE).- The director of the National Geographic Institute (IGN) in the Canary Islands, María José Blanco, has retired after a 33-year career, in which, among other activities, she served as scientific spokesperson in the last two eruptions in Spain: the submarine of El Hierro (2011) and that of La Palma (2021).
His colleague at IGN Rubén López published a thread on Twitter on Tuesday in which he extols the figure of María José Blanco, since under her leadership, he highlights, “the long-awaited” Volcanic Center in the Canary Islands germinated.
In addition, emphasizes López, the number of volcanic stations installed in the Canary Islands went from not having one per island to more than a hundred in the entire archipelago.
María José Blanco was, along with her colleague at IGN Carmen López, the visible face of the scientific community during the 85 days of eruptive activity on La Palma, after the meetings of the technical committee of the Special Plan for Civil Protection and Emergency Attention by Volcanic risk in the Canary Islands (Pevolca).
So was Miguel Ángel Morcuende, also retired, for the institutional part.
In an interview with EFE on the first anniversary of the start of the last eruption at Cumbre Vieja, María José Blanco admitted that the scientists who monitored the pre-eruptive activity “would have liked to be more precise” in their predictions, but “it is what there is, there is no more knowledge”.
He recalled that the Pevolca meeting held just a few hours before the lava began to flow in the Cabeza de Vaca area, on September 19, 2021, “was long because it was important to reach a consensus” on the report that they had to transfer to the emergency managers, and the situation was “very, very complicated”, adding that at that time “there were no indications of an imminent eruption”.
He justified it by how difficult it was to know, “based on the information on what was on the surface, what was happening underground”, and even if they had had more instrumentation, they would not have had “more light” for their predictions. , which as far as volcanology is concerned “are very complex”.
In contrast to the criticism received from some sectors of La Palma society, the work of Blanco, the IGN and the scientific community in general received numerous praise for their management during the volcanic crisis in La Palma, as well as express recognition in an institutional act on the anniversary of the eruption. EFE