La Palma After the Volcano: What Happened to the Buried Villages
- lapalmaexcursion
- Jul 26
- 2 min read
Looking at La Palma volcano before and after, the eruption ended in December 2021 — but for several villages on the island's western coast, it never really ended. This is what happened to the places the lava swallowed — and where you can still see it today.
Todoque: The Village That Disappeared
Todoque was a small neighborhood between El Paso and Los Llanos de Aridane — until the lava reached it in late September 2021. Within days, homes, a church, and a school were completely buried under molten rock.
Today, Todoque no longer exists as a village. What remains is solid lava rock, in some places dozens of meters deep, with only the outline of what used to be streets still visible from above.
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Puerto Naos and La Bombilla: Still Off-Limits
Unlike Todoque, the coastal towns of Puerto Naos and La Bombilla weren't directly covered by lava — but they've remained largely inaccessible since 2021 due to dangerous levels of volcanic gas trapped underground.
Years later, parts of these areas are still closed off, a reminder that a volcanic eruption doesn't end the day the lava stops flowing.
The New Coastline: Fajanas
Where lava reached the sea, it did something unusual: it created new land. These new stretches of coastline, known locally as fajanas, added around 48 hectares to the island — La Palma is, quite literally, bigger than it was before 2021.
La Palma Volcano Before and After: Where to See It Today
You don't need a guided tour into the exclusion zone to witness the scale of the eruption. Several public viewpoints let you see the transformed landscape safely:
Mirador de Tajuya — one of the closest public viewpoints to the lava flows, overlooking the area once occupied by Todoque
Mirador El Time — a wider view over the Aridane Valley, showing how the lava reshaped the landscape from a distance
Puerto de Tazacorte — from here you can see the new fajanas where lava met the ocean
A Landscape Still Settling
Life on La Palma has moved forward, but the island still carries the marks of those 85 days — in the villages that no longer exist, the areas still off-limits, and the new land rising where the sea used to be.
To understand the full story — not just what the landscape looks like, but what it felt like to live through it — walking the volcano route with a certified local guide who experienced the eruption firsthand adds context no viewpoint can give on its own. Learn more about visiting the area.
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