Although lava flows no longer threatened to burn his house in the mountainous town of Las Manchas, what awaited him was still grim: three-meter-high mounds of black ash piled up around his house and in the surrounding streets, they were forced to scramble over hills and scramble down dirty stairs to enter their home through the back door.
“It’s a mess inside. The dust gets into everything. But what are we going to do? We can’t fight nature,” the retiree told Reuters with resignation.
The house, situated in the foothills of the Cumbre Vieja volcano, is one of the areas whose residents were told Tuesday they could return after the three-month eruption was officially declared over on Christmas Day.
Jerónimo was confident that his house – built by his grandparents and in which he was born – was not among the nearly 3,000 buildings destroyed by rivers of molten rock. The only structural damage he sustained was the partial collapse of the garage roof, trapping his car underneath.
So far he has not received any official help to clean up the ashes, but said he will manage little by little with the help of his four children and friends. He currently lives in a hotel that local authorities have made available to many of the 7,000 people who have been forced from their homes.
Regaining a sense of normalcy, however, will take time with so much debris still blocking roads and with water and electricity services cut off.
Jerónimo smiles and says he feels calm, while on the other side of the road firefighters pour water into tanks to supply homes.
María Inmaculada Pérez, 62, was less optimistic as she sifted through the ashes around her home with her husband.
Like Jerónimo, he is living in a hotel, but hopes to return home in July if the authorities help with the cleanup. He fears the rain could solidify the ash, and he doesn’t know if it will be safe enough for his 84-year-old mother, who lived next door, to get home.
“The more (ash) we remove, the more we see, the more we remove, the more we see. It’s total helplessness,” he said. (Reporting by Joan Faus, Horaci García and Borja Suárez, writing by Joan Faus, translation by Darío Fernández. Editing by Javier Leira)
Source From: Ambito
David William is a talented author who has made a name for himself in the world of writing. He is a professional author who writes on a wide range of topics, from general interest to opinion news. David is currently working as a writer at 24 hours worlds where he brings his unique perspective and in-depth research to his articles, making them both informative and engaging.
