A new eruption from the Sundhnjukagigar volcano began at 8 a.m. on Sunday, January 14, north of the town of Grindavík in Iceland, the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said. A previous eruption of this volcano occurred in December 2023.
According to Icelandic Public Radio and Television (RUV), seismic activity had increased significantly overnight and residents of Grindavik were evacuated around 3 a.m. local time (4 a.m. Paris time). Surveillance footage shows large flows of bright orange lava along a fissure in Iceland's sunrise.
The IMO announced early this morning that this first crack appeared “on both sides of the defenses that have begun construction north of Grindavík,” “approximately 450 meters from the northernmost houses in the city.” “Just outside Grindavik city limits, a new rift has opened,” he said in a new midday bulletin.
“The city has already been successfully evacuated overnight and there is no threat to human life, but infrastructure may be at risk. “The flights will not be interrupted,” Icelandic President Gudni Johannesson said in a message to broadcaster RUV on September 17, 2016, considering the situation worrying.
Repeated evacuation orders
This is the fifth volcanic eruption in Iceland in two years, the last one, which is already worrying Sundhnjukagigar, occurred on the evening of December 18, 2023 in this sector, southwest of the capital Reykjavik. The town of Grindavik, population 4,000, was evacuated as a precautionary measure on November 11, 2023, after hundreds of earthquakes caused by the movement of magma beneath the earth's crust – a precursor to a volcanic eruption.
These earthquakes damaged the city and caused significant cracks in the streets as well as in homes and public buildings. Since then, since December 23, residents have had the right to return there briefly and then without warning before being urgently evacuated last night. Only a few dozen residents had returned to their homes.
Four days after the Dec. 18 eruption, authorities said volcanic activity had stopped, but could not say whether the eruption was over due to possible lava flows underground.
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One death on Wednesday due to seismic activity
The evacuation order for Grindavik issued on Saturday evening due to the resumption of seismic activity also follows the death on Wednesday of a 51-year-old Icelandic man who was working to fill a crevasse in a private garden when the ground suddenly gave way beneath his feet. After 48 hours of intensive searching, authorities decided to end the search on Friday evening due to the dangerous nature of the location. The man, who was not found, fell more than 30 meters.
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The authorities are also carefully monitoring the Svartsengi geothermal power plant, located in the same sector, which supplies electricity and water to around 30,000 residents of the region and whose facilities are protected by a wall. “What matters is where the lava flows. It is now very important to monitor it,” explained Kristin Jonsdottir, IMO volcanologist at RUV.
Until the eruption in March 2021, the Reykjanes Peninsula south of the capital Reykjavik had been spared from eruptions for eight centuries. In this land of fire and ice, the most volcanic region in Europe, 32 volcanic systems are considered active.
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