Lava from an erupting volcano in Iceland consumed a set a building on fire near the town of Grindavik. Photo / LIVEFROMICELAND.IS via AP
Lava from an erupting volcano in Iceland consumed a set a building on fire near the town of Grindavik. Photo / LIVEFROMICELAND.IS via AP
A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted for the second time in less than a month overnight, sending lava snaking towards a nearby community and setting at least one home on fire.
The eruption, which began shortly before 8am on Sunday local time, came after authorities evacuated the town of Grindavik following a swarm of small earthquakes, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said. Hours later, a second fissure opened near the edge of town and lava crept towards the homes.
“We just watch it on the cameras and there’s really nothing else we can do,” Grindavik resident Reynir Berg Jonsson told Iceland’s RUV television.
A plume of gas lit up by the lava from the erupting volcano seen from the road that leads to Grindavík, Iceland. Photo / AP
Grindavik is a town of 3800 people about 50km southwest of Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital. The community was previously evacuated in November following a series of earthquakes that opened large cracks in the earth between the town and Sylingarfell, a small mountain to the north. The nearby Blue Lagoon geothermal spa — one of Iceland’s biggest tourist attractions — also closed temporarily.
The volcano eventually erupted on December 18, and residents were allowed to return to their homes on December 22.
In the weeks since, emergency workers have been building defensive walls around Grindavik, but the barriers weren’t complete and lava is moving towards the community, the meteorological office said.
A volcano has erupted near Grindavik, Iceland, sending semi-molten rock spewing towards a nearby settlement for the second time in less than a month. Photo / Icelandic Civil Protection via AP
Before last month’s eruption, the Svartsengi volcanic system north of Grindavik had been dormant for about 780 years. The volcano is just a few kilometres west of Fagradalsfjall, which was dormant for 6000 years before flaring to life in March 2021.
Unlike the previous event, Saturday’s eruption at Svartsengi produced a “very rapid flow” of lava that moved south towards Grindavik, said Kristín Jonsdottir of the met office.
“Luckily, we got some warnings, so we got increased earthquake activity, and this was all communicated towards the civil protection, so the town of Grindavik was evacuated,” she said.
Lava from an erupting volcano in Iceland consumed a set a building on fire near the town of Grindavik. Photo / LIVEFROMICELAND.IS via AP)
Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hotspot in the North Atlantic, averages one eruption every four to five years.
The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed clouds of ash into the atmosphere and disrupted trans-Atlantic air travel for months.
Sunday’s eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula isn’t expected to release large amounts of ash into the air. Operations at Keflavik Airport are continuing as normal, said Gudjon Helgason, a spokesman for airport operator Isavia.
People watch from the north as the volcano erupts near Grindavík, Iceland. Photo / AP
But Grindavik residents are closely monitoring the slowly unfolding disaster as the streams of smoking lava creep towards 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 this on television, the fact that you can see this on webcams, it’s a bit of a weird feeling to see a town being destroyed almost in slow motion at this point.”
