Army clears volcanic ash from La Palma buildings

Emergency crews moved in to start clearing the thick blanket of ash covering parts of the Spanish island of La Palma on Sunday after the monthslong eruption of its volcano was declared over.

Spain's Military Emergencies Unit (UME) shared footage of its personnel surveying and digging through the deep black ash laid the island's landscape.

Authorities declared the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano finished on Saturday following 10 days of no lava flows, seismic activity or significant sulfur dioxide emissions. It had begun in September.

But the emergency in La Palma, the most northwest island in the Atlantic Ocean archipelago, is not over due to the widespread damage the eruption caused, the director of the Canaries' volcanic emergency committee said in announcing the much-anticipated milestone.

Fiery molten rock flowing down toward the sea destroyed around 3,000 buildings, entombed banana plantations and vineyards, ruined irrigation systems and cut off roads.

But no injuries or deaths were directly linked to the eruption.

Volcanologists said they needed to certify that three key variables - gas, lava and tremors - had subsided in the Cumbre Vieja ridge for 10 days in order to declare the volcano's apparent exhaustion.

Since the eruption started on September 19, previous periods of reduced activity were followed by reignitions.

On the eve of December 14, the volcano fell silent after flaring for 85 days and eight hours, making it La Palma's longest eruption on record.

IMAGE: AP