Award Winning Drone Of Abandoned La Palma Home
This the moment a drone passes over a La Palma house – which recently featured in the New York Times’ ‘The Year in Pictures’ article – one month after a volcanic crack appeared in the garden, prompting the family to flee.
The house owner Amanda Melian, 33, fled the property with her family when a volcanic mouth opened in her back garden on 3rd December.
She said: “I would never have imagined that the volcano I was fleeing from was just under my house!”
Amanda built the house on the Spanish volcanic island, which had not seen an eruption since 1971, believing it would be safe from volcanic activity, however the Cumbre Vieja started spewing lava on 19th September.
The eruption lasted 85 days, the longest known eruption in La Palma, and came to an end on 13th December.
Images of Amanda’s semi-submerged house were shared around the world, and a picture taken by photographer Emilio Morenatti was featured in the New York Times’ ‘The Year (2021) in Pictures’ article.
A month after evacuating her house, Amanda wanted to know how it was faring, so she, like many other families in the area, contacted the local audiovisual company I Love the World, which has been flying drones in the area to record images of affected homes.
Amanda explained: “My house is in the exclusion zone and we are not allowed to go to see it. I imagine it will not have changed. I trust we can go to see it in 2022, sometime soon.
“Let’s see if the ash has made it disappear or if it is still standing.”
A spokesperson for I Love the World said: “People give us coordinates and we release drones to show what we see.
“It has been financially and psychologically exhausting, but at the same time it has been comforting to provide help to others.
“We will tell our story in more detail in a book we are currently writing.”
Amanda said: “I spoke to them by video call when they were leaving La Palma for a few days and I told them ‘please, when you come back, don’t forget to look at my house’.
“And so they did, after a few days they came back and showed us the house and the lava crack that appeared in the garden. They were true to their word.”
The audiovisual company has been sharing images of the island’s affected homes on its Facebook page.
It is unclear when Amanda and her family can return to the ash-covered house.