Authorities have evacuated about 5,000 people from villages in the Spanish Canary Island of La Palma as lava spews from an erupting volcano, local officials said, according to Reuters. The 15-meter high lava flow has already swallowed 20 houses in the village of El Paso and sections of roads, Mayor Sergio Rodriguez told TVE radio station on Monday morning. It is now spreading through the neighbouring village of Los Llanos de Aridane where hundreds of houses are at risk, he said. "We are monitoring the trajectory of the lava," Rodriguez said. Since erupting on Sunday afternoon, the volcano has shot lava up hundreds meters into the air and poured flows of molten rock towards the Atlantic Ocean over a sparsely populated area of La Palma, the most northwestern island in the Canaries archipelago. No fatalities were reported and none are likely to happen so long as no one behaves recklessly, volcanologist Nemesio Perez said on Monday.
