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Monday, February 12, 2007
Tenerife Cavern Disaster: Where it happened
This weekend's tragic events have put the name of Tenerife on the front pages of the media on all of the continents of the world once more. However, without wishing this to sound like a derogatory remark, many people who are reading about this event, indeed, those writing about it, previously had no notion of where Tenerife and the Canary Islands are, let alone the location of Los Silos - which I have even seen referred to as a "complex". Los Silos is a small town of +/- 5,000 inhabitants.
Indeed, the event has been classified on the international disaster database and gotten a GLIDE number already AC-20070211-9820-SPI. They even have it plotted on a Google Map at the above page. Unfortunately, at the wrong end of the island!
So, for those visitors arriving here with questions - and this is likely to be a few, as traffic to this site peaked yesterday to between one and a half and two times the usual numbers and from many searches on Yahoo and Google for terms such as "Piedra de Los Cochinos" and "canary island underground tunnels" - here, is some information we've gathered and a map of the area for your information.
See larger map | Google Earth
The blue markers, which show roughly where the expedition was intended to start and end, I've plotted at mere central points in Erjos, the start and Los Silos where they should have walked to (along a roughly straight line between the two).
The yellow markers, I can plot much more accurately: the top (northern) one being the Finca Los Pedregales here in El Palmar, where the emergency services had set up operations and, whose market mural will be familiar if you look at the top of the page. The other yellow marker is at the entrance to the single track road that leads into the Monte del Agua. (The small black marker between the two is where I am.)
Finally, I've marked the approximate location of the Barranco de los Cochinos, the place where the walkers were trapped, with a red marker, taking reference from this map on the town hall's website, on which Piedra de Los Cochinos is mentioned.
I've no idea how far into those mountains that a road, passable by vehicles goes, but as is patently obvious from the ariel images and the contours, this is no "walk in the park" and, especially not for rescue services needing to transport oxygen tanks, breathing apparatus and other equipment into the area, then 2 km into a cavern.
This page from the town hall, tells us that the footpath of the Cuevas Negras (Black Caves) - the route the party were following - was used in ancient times as the main link between Los Silos and Santiago del Teide. At the start of the 19th Century, it became a Camino Real (literally Royal Way, which we would probably call a public right of way), uniting Los Silos with Erjos, later going on to Guía de Isora. With the introduction of private property and parcelling the land, the footpaths began to be delimited by dry stone walls and, in some of the steeper areas, steps and cobbles were laid to facilitate the passage of horseshoes and beasts of burden.
At the end of the 19th Century, the most dangerous parts of the route were walled and stone bridges built across the biggest changes in level, so the route could be traversed more rapidly, bring merchandise; agricultural products, livestock, charcoal for fuel, etc., down from the middle and high ground to the towns.
Whilst some of the track is asphalted, some parts of the route, however, still maintain the same surfaces as they had originally: that is, dirt tracks without stone, nor metalled surface and varying considerably in width at various points.
This article about a walk in the area, although is in Spanish, has photos that clearly illustrate the nature of the area. In it, they describe both the barrancos (gorges) of Cuevas Negras and Los Cochinos as being "profound", i.e. exceedingly steep.
There are a number of photos, although mostly small, of the areas around Erjos, Monte del Agua, the Barranco de los Cochinos and the water gallery at Piedra de los Cochinos, here. There are further photos and a map at this page.
Finally, for those who read Spanish, or perhaps wade through with an automated translation, here is an article in Spanish travel magazine, Viajar, La belleza de un lugar privilegiado (The beauty of a privileged location), which talks about the Isla Baja area formed by Buenavista del Norte, Garachico, Los Silos and El Tanque.
More background information from:
Web site of Los Silos Town Hall
Information on the geography of Los Silos
Information on the Laurel Forest Habitat
Brief history of Los Silos
Los Silos at Wikipedia
LosSilos.com
Labels: Piedra de los Cochinos
2 Comments:
Pamela wrote (on
February 13, 2007)
Yes, this is exactly what I thought about the GLIDE information and, why I decided to write this post really to provide something more accurate.
I suppose they chose "Technological Disaster", because it does not fit any of their other categories they list. And, I agree with you that they just chose the location of the capital (more or less).
I'm also assuming that the entry was added to their database before the deaths were confirmed, but you would think that they would have updated it since.
In all, it's just not accurate enough, considering the "technology" we do have available.
The information in that GLIDE number seems to me to be quite bad. It says this was a "Technological Disaster", but it had nothing to do with technology. It says there were 6 "injured", but there were 6 "death", terribly death :-(
And as for the map, they seem to have just put the location of the capital city Santa Cruz de Tenerife.