In the shadow of the volcano.

Quite on the fringes of Europe, on the Azores island of Faial, more cows than people. The heavenly peace only disturb the activities of the volcanoes, which also change the landscape - even eruptions created new neighbor islands.
  Horta - Faial is like a piece of paradise. The waves of the Atlantic break with splashing white foam on the black volcanic rocks, gulls circling over the Lavabrocken. Only 13 small communities are on the Azores Islands, twelve of them right on the coast. The blue of the ocean and the green pastures are the dominant colors. With luck, you can from the coast even see whales. Hydrangea bushes are along the roads and between fields.
A piece behind the island's capital, Horta, a farmer in three cows calmly on the street, large black gutgenährte Bunte. On Faial, more cows than people. That sounds idyllic, but it is not: volcanic eruptions, the landscape of the island at the edge of Europe dominated. And periodically the earth trembles.
"There are earthquakes every 20 years. The last ten years ago," says Sandra Dart, on Faial was born and whose family has been living there for centuries. "A major volcanic eruption, there were 1672," she says. "He has the first wave of emigration to Brazil triggered." Lava and craters are everywhere on the island to see. In the southeast at Monte da Guia, there are two large water-filled crater - one 123, the other 26 meters deep. The volcanic landscape design is protected.
HOLIDAY ISLAND-RANKING Find your dream island: Click on the picture to the assessments of 111 islands lesenDie recent disaster is just a good 50 years ago: The volcanic activities with constantly new quakes and eruptions retreated in the years 1957-58 a total of 13 months out. After the disaster that decimated the island's population: For the 30,000 people lived before on Faial, today there are still about 15,000. Many of the emigrants took it back in the U.S. - New York is exactly in the direction of the west.
This is also the reason why every year, so many visitors arriving from North America - many of them were born on the island. They all go to the lighthouse island in the west, there is where the outbreak at the center of the disaster was. For months, ash rained down on the tower, and soon he was half-covered them. The basement is still under the rubble masses hidden.
A tower as a symbol
But the lighthouse is also a symbol for the staying of the people on Faial - that the natural disaster was not the end. Today the tower is even one of the main attractions. Since August 2008, he hosts a museum dedicated to the history of Volcanology and dedicated to the outbreak.
A multimedia show explains why he was so unique: It began with a wave of earthquakes, which is about 15 days you buy a new. Just over a kilometer from the coast was on 27 September 1957 by the eruptions of the volcano Capelinhos suddenly an island, the end of October again in the sea disappeared.
Underground volcanic activity could soon emerge a new island and sink. A third, much larger, it eventually merged with Faial. "Faial is then increased by 2.4 square kilometers has grown," says Sandra Dart. In December 1957, there were the first outbreak, in which lava überirdisch ausströmte. This was followed again and again earthquakes and volcanic activity under the sea, then explosions, in which tons of ash into the air were. Only on 24 October 1958, the volcano quiet - west of the island after a new face had received.
Nobody was killed, but many houses were destroyed. From ash and lava-covered fields and pastures have been lost for ever. The area around the lighthouse is still looks like a black desert on an alien planet - unreal beautiful.