A volcano has erupted in southwest Iceland for the second time in less than a month, hurling half-molten rock toward a nearby settlement
From
MARCO DI MARCO Associated Press
January 14, 2024, 5:25 am ET
• 3 min reading
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — A volcano erupted in southwest Iceland on Sunday for the second time in less than a month, sending streams of lava toward a nearby community and setting at least one home on fire.
The eruption, which began just before 8 a.m. local time, occurred after authorities evacuated the town of Grindavik following a series of small earthquakes, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said. Hours later, a second fissure opened on the outskirts of the city and lava crept towards the houses.
“We just watch it in front of the cameras and there’s really nothing else we can do,” Reynir Berg Jónsson from Grindavik told Iceland’s RUV television.
Grindavik is a town of 3,800 residents about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. The community was evacuated back in November after a series of earthquakes caused large cracks in the earth between the town and Sýlingarfell, a small mountain to the north. The nearby Blue Lagoon geothermal spa – one of Iceland's biggest tourist attractions – was also temporarily closed.
The volcano finally erupted on December 18th and residents were allowed to return to their homes on December 22nd.
In the weeks since, rescue workers have built defensive walls around Grindavik, but the barriers were not yet ready and lava is moving toward the community, the weather office said.
Before last month's eruption, the Svartsengi volcanic system north of Grindavik had been inactive for about 780 years. The volcano lies just a few kilometers west of Fagradalsfjall, which was dormant for 6,000 years before coming to life in March 2021.
Unlike the previous event, Saturday's eruption at Svartsengi produced a “very fast lava flow” that moved south towards Grindavik, said Kristín Jónsdóttir of the Met Office.
“Fortunately, we received some warnings so the earthquake activity increased and this was communicated to civil protection so the town of Grindavik was evacuated,” she said.
Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hotspot in the North Atlantic, experiences an eruption every four to five years on average.
The most devastating recent eruption was the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010, which spewed clouds of ash into the atmosphere and paralyzed transatlantic air traffic for months.
Sunday's eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula is not expected to release large amounts of ash into the air. Operations at Keflavík Airport are continuing as normal, said Gudjon Helgason, press spokesman for airport operator Isavia.
But the residents of Grindavik are carefully watching the slowly unfolding disaster as streams of smoking lava flow toward their homes.
“I can’t really imagine what people are going through,” said Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove, a nature photographer. “The fact that you can see it on TV, the fact that you can see it on webcams, it's a little bit strange feeling at this point in time to see a city being destroyed almost in slow motion.”