El Hierro eruption

[Janet]

After an afternoon of large quakes, the biggest one yet. Direct reports from El Hierro say it occurred at 5.01pm, and really shook property. This quake is being recorded as 4.7 on the Richter scale, but direct reports say it felt bigger than that. It was also felt on La Palma.

[Janet]

this is the sum total of the quakes since the whole thing started ... 

[Nova]

 

[Janet]

There were 190 earthquakes registered yesterday, but as said before, these are just the larger ones now. Experts say that in reality there will be over 1,000 if all tremors are included. Fourteen of the quakes were Richter 4 or above, the largest being the 4.7 at 5pm, though locals are adamant that it felt much stronger than this - that could be the effect of the specific location or depth of the quake, perhaps, but its effect was clearly major. So far today, 55 earthquakes have been recorded, and there is confirmation that El Hierro, as an island, has been shifted eastwards by the magma and deformation caused by its pressure.

[Janet]

113 quakes yesterday, and after the excitement of the Richter 4+ quakes of the day before, yesterday seemed like a calm day! If I'd been posting this an hour or two ago, I'd have said that this eruption now seems to be calming down, with just a handful of Richter 3 quakes overnight and early morning, but then at 9.40, a 4.5 was registered in the Frontera area. More details later, of course, but even when this crisis really starts to die away, we need to be aware that it's just dozing, not asleep.

[Perikles]

but even when this crisis really starts to die away,

For a crisis, it's pretty boring so far.

[Janet]

  vulcanological term, apparently ...

[Janet]

 the largest so far. An earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale was recorded at 11am.

The timings, I've realized belatedly, are official ones and so are mainland Spain times. Canarian time is an hour ahead – so rather than trying to remember to add an hour on each post, and forgetting and so causing confusion, please can everyone just mentally add an hour onto any times posted?

[Janet]

The 4.9 earthquake registered an hour ago is now bringing reports of strong shaking not just in El Hierro, but La Palma too. Many reports also of rockfalls. The quake was at a depth of 20 km and out to sea in the Frontera area.

[Nova]

Canarian time is an hour ahead – so rather than trying to remember to add an hour on each post, and forgetting and so causing confusion, please can everyone just mentally add an hour onto any times posted?

It's the other way round... Canarian times are an hour behind the mainland, so we need to subtract an hour from the official times to know the local time here