When the Cumbre Vieja volcano in La Palma, the Canary Islands, erupted in September 2021, it caused more than £760m of damage, forcing the evacuation of 6,000 people and killing one, an elderly man who died after inhaling toxic gases. It would be 83 days before officials declared the eruption over, on Christmas Day 2021.
David del Rosario Dávila has been a national park ranger in La Palma since 2016. A self-described mountain man, he took this shot in the area surrounding the eruption in late October 2022, just over a year after it had begun. “The location and landscape were created by the eruption, making it one of the youngest areas on the planet,” Del Rosario Dávila says. “Everything you see in this photograph is new. The dead trees are from a pine forest that used to exist there; the mountain is made from ash from the volcano.”
When Del Rosario Dávila walked the new path, it was approaching dusk and the weather was cloudy. “I was at the end of the trail when a clearing opened up between the clouds, and the now-quiet volcano was illuminated by this beautiful light.”
On finding beauty in the tragedy, he adds: “We must separate the human drama that occurred from the natural phenomenon and the conditions that exist in this place. They are volcanic islands, for better and for worse. It is our reality.”
