Geysers of molten lava continued to light up the Icelandic sky on Tuesday, a day after a new volcanic eruption occurred southwest of Reykjavik following weeks of seismic activity.
• Also read: Iceland plans to cool lava to protect the city of Grindavik
• Also read: A town in Iceland was evacuated due to fears of a volcanic eruption
• Also read: State of emergency in Iceland due to fear of volcanic eruption
This new eruption, the fourth in two years, occurred three kilometers from the small town of Grindavik, home to 4,000 residents, which has been evacuated since November 11 after a state of emergency was declared in the area following a large accumulation of magma.
The Svarstengi geothermal power plant is located two kilometers west of the eruption and supplies around 30,000 residents in the region with electricity and water. After seismic activity in November, authorities built a protective wall around the facility.
According to the Icelandic Meteorological Institute (IMO), the eruption began at 10:17 p.m. (GMT) on Monday, following an earthquake around 9 p.m.
Live-streamed footage of the eruption showed jets of bright orange lava pouring from a fault, surrounded by plumes of red smoke against the dark morning sky.
“Our thoughts are (…) with the local population (of Grindavík, editor's note), we hope for the best, but it is clear that this is a significant outbreak,” wrote Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir Facebook.
The strength of the outbreak “appears to be waning,” the IMO wrote on its website on Tuesday morning.
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“The fact that activity is already decreasing is not an indication of the duration of the outbreak, but rather that the outbreak is stabilizing,” the institute adds.
The fissure is about four kilometers long, much longer than the last eruption in the summer.
“We now wait to see what the forces of nature have in store for us,” wrote Icelandic President Gudni Johannesson on X (formerly Twitter). He added that protecting lives and infrastructure was the top priority.
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According to the IMO, the aviation color code had changed to red before quickly changing back to orange due to the lack of an ash cloud.
“At the moment there is no disruption to arrivals or departures at Keflavik Airport,” Icelandic airport operator ISAVIA said on its website overnight, as traffic was relatively light at the time.
New volcanic cycle?
All roads around Grindavík are closed and are expected to remain closed for the next few days, the police said on Facebook and emphasized that there is no danger to the population in the current situation.
In 2021, 2022 and last July, volcanic eruptions in an uninhabited area nearby had become major tourist attractions, attracting nearly 680,000 visitors, according to the Icelandic Tourism Board.
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The head of civil protection and emergency management in Iceland, Vídir Reynisson, warned on local public television RUV that this new outbreak “is not a tourist outbreak and it needs to be observed from a very long distance.”
In October, signs of ground swelling were detected near the Blue Lagoon, famous hot baths with turquoise water that are popular with tourists. The site partially reopened on Sunday.
As of March 2021, the Reykjanes Peninsula, south of the capital Reykjavik, had been spared from eruptions for eight centuries.
Since then, there have been two more, in August 2022 and July 2023, which volcanologists consider a sign of a resumption of volcanic activity in the region.
According to volcanologists, the new cycle on the peninsula could last decades.
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In this land of fire and ice, the most volcanic region in Europe, 33 volcanic systems are considered active
“No country is better prepared”
On November 11, residents of Grindavik were evacuated as a precaution after hundreds of earthquakes were caused by the movement of magma beneath the Earth's crust, a possible warning sign of a volcanic eruption.
Buildings and roads in the city sustained significant damage from this seismic activity.
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“No country is better prepared for natural disasters than Iceland,” the Prime Minister said on November 18.
In 2010, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in the south of the island caused the largest disruption to air traffic in peacetime. A title that has now been removed from shelves due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Other volcanoes, such as Askja in Iceland's uninhabited central highlands, have recently shown signs of activity.