Angry Earth. A volcanic eruption, the fourth in two years, began Monday evening in Iceland, in an area south of the capital Reykjavik, where seismic activity had been very intense since the beginning of November, the Icelandic Meteorological Institute (IMO) said. .
“An effusive eruption began a few kilometers northeast of Grindavík,” the IMO announced in a statement, indicating that the aviation color code had changed to red, before quickly switching back to orange in the absence of ash cloud.
“The eruption began at 10:17 p.m. (GMT) following an earthquake around 9:00 p.m.,” then specified the meteorological institute, which noted that “the estimated length of the crack is approximately 2.8 km, three times larger than during the last eruption last summer.
“Not a tourist rash”
According to images from local media, whose cameras have been installed near the volcano for weeks, the incandescent orange lava gushes vigorously from a fissure which indeed seems quite long.
“It’s not a tourist eruption and you have to observe it from a long distance,” Vídir Reynisson, head of Iceland’s civil protection and emergency management, told local public television RUV.
“Our thoughts are (…) with the local population (of Grindavík), we hope for the best, but it is clear that this is a considerable eruption”, wrote on Facebook the head of the Icelandic government, Katrín Jakobsdóttir . “At the moment, there are no disruptions to arrivals or departures at Keflavik Airport,” Icelandic airport operator ISAVIA said on its website, with traffic being relatively low at this late hour.
A strike by air traffic controllers planned for Tuesday, however, should have some impact for many travelers. For their part, the local police indicated that the population would not be in danger in the current state of the eruption.
It had already been widely mobilized since October and signs of swelling of the ground, caused by an accumulation of magma detected near the “Blue Lagoon”, famous hot baths with turquoise waters very popular with tourists. The site partially reopened on Sunday due to the apparent calm in seismicity.
New cycle of volcanic activity?
Until March 2021, the Reykjanes Peninsula, south of the capital Reykjavik, had been spared from eruptions for eight centuries. Since then, there have been two others, in August 2022 and July 2023, a sign, for volcanologists, of a resumption of volcanic activity in the region.
According to volcanologists, the new cycle in the peninsula could last decades. Thirty-three volcanic systems are considered active in this country of fire and ice, the most volcanic region in Europe.
On November 11, after the declaration of a state of emergency, the inhabitants of Grindavik, a picturesque village of 4,000 inhabitants, were evacuated as a precaution after hundreds of earthquakes caused by the movement of magma under the earth’s crust, a potentially sign harbinger of a volcanic eruption.
Since then, they have only been allowed to visit their homes during certain time slots during the day. According to the IMO, currently to the north-east of the town, “the eruption could extend towards Grindavík”. “No country is better prepared for natural disasters than Iceland,” said the Prime Minister on November 18 during a press conference.
In 2010, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, in the south of the island, caused the largest disruption to air traffic in peacetime. A title since erased from the shelves by the Covid-19 pandemic. Other volcanoes, such as Askja in Iceland’s uninhabited central highlands, have recently shown signs of activity.
One of the country’s most formidable volcanoes is Katla, near the southern coast. Its last eruption was in 1918, an unusually long pause suggesting an upcoming revival. The latest eruptions attracted many onlookers, tourists and locals, who came to admire the lava flows escaping from the eruptive faults.