La Palma After the Volcano: What Happened to the Buried Villages

lapalmaexcursion
2 days ago
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.

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.