By Mark Johanson | October 11, 2011 2:35 PM EDT
Officials on Spain’s El Hierro Island in the Canaries said on Tuesday that they are evacuating some 600 residents from a small coastal town due to volcanic activity in the area.
El Hierro has experienced over 10,000 earthquakes since July 19, a sign that magma is rising towards the Earth’s surface.
Spain’s Instituto Geografico Nacional (IGN) confirmed on Tuesday that an underwater eruption is occurring 3 miles (5km) off the southern coastline of El Hierro, the smallest of the Canary Islands, which are located in the Atlantic off the coast ofMorocco.
The volcanic eruption is Spain’s first since the 1971 eruption of the Teneguia Volcano on the nearby island of La Palma.
IGN confirmed that all three of its seismic stations on El Hierro registered low frequency volcanic tremors in the south of the island at the southernmost village in the Canaries, La Restinga. Residents of the town were summoned to a football field on Tuesday where they were briefed on evacuation procedures.
“Facing a change in the seismic event that is affecting El Hierro Island, and as a preventative measure, we are carrying out the relocation of the population of La Restinga,” a local government spokesman said in a statement.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero met with his cabinet for an emergency briefing on the developments Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, regional government safety chief Juan Manuel Santana told reporters on Tuesday that raising the alert level from yellow to red – the second and third steps of a four-step system – was a preventative measure.
