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CARL AZUZ: Hi.
I'm Carl Azuz.
Welcome to the show.
It's good to have you watching as we kick off
a new week of news coverage.
We're returning to the Canary Islands
today, a Spanish archipelago that's off
the coast of Northwest Africa.
That's where the Cumbre Vieja volcano has been
erupting since September 19, and this thing hasn't settled down.
In fact, the Canary Islands regional government
says the most energetic moment of the eruption
was recorded on Friday afternoon.
That's when two new vents opened on the volcano's crater.
These are new places where lava is oozing out.
And the new vents eventually merged together, forming
a fast-moving flow of lava.
The volcano is located on the island of La Palma.
It's one of the smaller Canary Islands.
La Palma is only about 26 miles long and 17 miles across
at its widest point, so people there are limited
and where they can go to get away from the eruption.
Spanish media say hundreds of homes and buildings
have been destroyed by lava.
Spain's prime minister, who spent most of the past week
on La Palma, says immediate financial help
is on the way from the Spanish government
to those who've been affected.
La Palma's airport was open on Sunday to fly people out.
That wasn't the case on Saturday, so how else could
residents and tourists evacuate?
- Red hot lava simmers through the darkness over Spain's La
Palma island, a shocking display from afar
and chaos for anyone living near the volcano.
Daylight in La Palma is time for cleaning up.
Shop owners sweep away the ashes that
have accumulated overnight.
The volcano has spewed out thousands of tons of lava
since it began erupting a week ago,
but experts say it is now in a dangerous explosive stage,
and a new emission vent has opened.
Firefighters are evacuating more towns
because of the volatility.
So far, about 6,000 people have been
forced to leave their homes.
Spain's airport operator announced the island's airport
was inoperable on Saturday-- too many clouds of ash and volcanic
debris on the runways.
Several flights were canceled, leaving some tourists stranded.
Others joined the long lines of the ferry to try to leave town.
CARLOS GARCIA: [speaking spanish]
INTERPRETER: I feel sad for the people
who are having such a bad time.
We feel very bad about what is happening.
- But leaving isn't an easy option for some.
Besides tourism, La Palma depends on banana crops
to support its economy.
This farmer says his house was spared,
but his harvest is lost.
The fruit that wasn't blackened by the heat
is contaminated by volcanic dust.
ANTONIO BRITO: [speaking spanish]
INTERPRETER: This is all burned.
This has been completely burned by the heat and the wind,
and the same goes for that over there.
The bananas are completely burned.
- This family, living in the shadow of the volcano,
all too familiar with its rumblings and the warnings
that come with it.
Their bags are packed and ready to go if authorities
tell them to evacuate.
REMEDIOS DOMINGUEZ: [speaking spanish]
INTERPRETER: I cannot sleep.
It's constantly there.
Yesterday, shockwaves were reaching us
and the house was shaking.
- Hoping against hope that their home will be safe,
like this one left untouched by a previous lava
flow, when everything else around it was lost.
CARL AZUZ: 10-second trivia.
What is the only South American country
to border both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea?
Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, or Argentina?
[beeping]
Costa Rica is part of Central America,
so the only South American country to do this is Colombia.
No drinking water, no electricity, no roads--
those are the biggest difficulties
in living in rural parts of Colombia,
according to one person who does.
She says her kids couldn't do their homework
at night because there wasn't enough light.
In 2015, a community worker named
Jennifer Copus helped found an organization
that's working to change that.
Copus is a CNN Hero.
[music playing]
JENNIFER COPUS: They have been invisible for the government
and also for a lot of Colombians.
JENNIFER COPUS: These areas are so remote that there
is no even roads to get there.
Nobody goes there, but we are going there
to provide them the essentials.
After my college, I have moved to India
and I was working in an IT company.
I observed really extreme poverty over there.
Something inside me start saying, like, you
need to do something about it.
So I decided to change all my career path.
When it came back to Colombia, I realized
that there was a lot of extreme poverty not far from my home.
I start working in this very vulnerable area of Cartagena,
where there was no electricity.
There was no drinkable water.
And there was no toilets.
Me and my friends decided to start Tierra Grata,
with a mission to provide access to basic services,
including clean energy, safe water,
and sanitation to rural areas.
Tierra Grata means gratitude to the Earth.
The families that we are working with use
candles, gasoline lamps.
They were spending a lot of money,
and the smoke of the lamps were negatively
affecting their health.
So we put solar panels on their homes.
JENNIFER COPUS: The energy program works through energy
solar systems, so they can turn on the lights
and other electrical equipment.
We also provide solar lamps, so they
can move around their own communities and be light.
The water that they have access is not drinkable water.
That water makes them a lot of healthy problems.
JENNIFER COPUS: The water filter program, it
is a microfiltration process that take out
bacteria, viruses, and other elements
that can make people sick.
Every family will have around 40 liters of water per day--
JENNIFER COPUS: --so they can cook
and they can drink safe water.
JENNIFER COPUS: We have already reached around 10,000 people.
What inspire me is their stories,
their inner power to go ahead.
And they are very resilient.
They really motivate me to go further,
because despite all the problems that they have faced,
they keep going and they don't give up.
JENNIFER COPUS: My biggest dream is that they can wake up
not just to survive, but they can
make a step forward and start fulfilling their dreams.
[music playing]
CARL AZUZ: For "10 Out Of 10," one
instance in which you're not going to need a bigger boat.
This heavy transport vessel is "huge-mungous."
How big is it?
It's able to carry a cruise ship.
The Boca Vanguard is the largest ship of its kind.
The deck of the specially-made vessel
is able to sink below the water's surface
so it can scoop up, so to speak, massive equipment,
like inoperable cruise ships, or more commonly,
offshore oil and gas structures.
When you "car-go" put out to sea because it's "mari-time"
to move something massive, or there are "hard-ships"
upon the high seas because the cruisers ain't cruising--
they're passive, the book is on "van-guard"
against loss of hope, a vast whale of a vessel
that can float your boat.
I'm Carl Azuz.
Plainfield, Illinois, is our last stop today.
It's the home of the Cougars of Plainfield South High School.
We'll see you tomorrow for more CNN.
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