Iceland yesterday decreed a state of emergency and ordered the evacuation of a municipality located 50 kilometers southwest of the capital in anticipation of a large volcanic eruption.
For weeks now, seismographs have detected ground tremors on the Reyjanes peninsula due to underground magma currents.
The 3,400 inhabitants of Grindavik, a fishing town near the Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa that is one of Iceland's main tourist destinations, yesterday took their personal belongings, closed their houses and moved to a safe place.
“It is very likely that magma has spread beneath Grindavik,” according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office.
The current is about ten kilometers long and runs about five kilometers deep towards the sea. The tremors, up to magnitude 4.8, have been occurring for a couple of weeks and intensified on Friday. Yesterday they were almost permanent.
“I don't think it will take much time before an eruption, maybe hours or maybe a few days,” University of Iceland volcanologist Thorvaldur Thordarson told public broadcaster RUV. “The odds have increased very significantly,” he added.
Until that moment arrives, the authorities are raising barriers to protect the Svartsengi power plant, which produces energy for the 30,000 inhabitants of the peninsula, and they have closed the Blue Lagoon for at least a week.
For the last 800 years, the volcanoes in the area – which date back about 6,000 years – have been dormant, but they woke up in 2021, specifically in the Fagradalsfjall system, which measures 19 kilometers long and 6 kilometers wide. Since then, there have been two other eruptions, one in August 2022 and another last July. Thousands of tourists and curious people have come there to enjoy this spectacle of nature.
Until now, the eruptions have been in the form of lava, but Thordarson does not rule out that this time there could be an explosive type, which would force the interruption of air traffic at the Keflavik airport, near Reykjavík.
In any case, this eruption is not expected to be as important as that of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in 2010. Then, the ash cloud stopped air traffic in Europe for several weeks. More than 100,000 flights were affected.
The ash from a volcano is very abrasive, it can damage an airplane's engine, as well as navigation systems, in addition to worsening visibility.
Iceland has thirty volcanic systems. The island is located right where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates collide. Few places on Earth have so much geological activity.
Eruptions are frequent, but do not usually affect inhabited areas. Since 1973 there had not been a need to evacuate a municipality.
