Huge volcanic eruption recorded in Iceland after weeks of earthquakes

A volcano erupted on Monday in southwest Iceland following weeks of intense earthquake exercise, the nation’s Meteorological Office stated.

Fearing a big outbreak on the Reykjanes peninsula, authorities final month evacuated the almost 4,000 inhabitants of the fishing city of Grindavik and closed the close by Blue Lagoon geothermal spa.

Iceland’s Met Office warned on their web site that an ‘eruption has began north of Grindavik by Hagafall’.

A coast guard helicopter will probably be within the air shortly to substantiate the precise location and measurement of the eruption, the Met Office added.

The eruption on the Sundhjuka crater lit up the night time sky with magma spurts after a sequence of earthquakes hit the world. Images and livestreams by native information outlet RUV confirmed lava spewing from fissures within the floor.

Speaking following the eruption, Fannar Jónasson, mayor of Grindavik, stated Icelandic information service Visi: ‘I’m simply, like others, attempting to get data. But this looks as if fairly an explosion within the early phases. But you do not know something but. It’s going to be a protracted night time.’ 

Pictures from surveillance cameras masking the volcano present magma spurts

He added that just a few hundred meters could make all of the distinction, regardless of during which path the lava flows. 

Also chatting with Visi because the blast started, volcanologist Þorvald Þórðarson admitted the eruption was the worst-case state of affairs.

He defined: ‘We have been speaking about two eventualities just a few days in the past, one among which was that every thing was going to chill out and die out, you have been hoping that was what was happening. The different is that this stretch of the crust above the intrusion would have reached its tolerance restrict and that it might begin to erupt. This is what we feared essentially the most.’

Iceland Police stated in an announcement: ‘An eruption has begun. We ask folks to not be in entrance of the responders and to not go within the path of the eruption. It is vital that roads and different issues are as accessible as potential.’ 

Reykjavik’s worldwide airport, which is situated close by, remained open. ‘At the second, there are not any disruptions to arrivals or departures at Keflavik Airport,’ it stated on its web site.

This comes after the volcano was hit by greater than 1,000 earthquakes in simply 24 hours on November 9, igniting fears of an imminent eruption.

Geophysicist Benedikt Ofeigsson stated in November that there have been clear indicators that vast magma hall below the Reykjanes Peninsula was increasing.

The space across the Fagradalsfjall had braced itself for an eruption after large chasms ripping aside properties and roads in Grindavik.

A dwell steam of the volcano reveals the expected eruption in Iceland tonight

The port Of Grindavik braced itself for what could possibly be an eruption of the close by Fagradalsfjall volcano or one of many fissures which have opened up within the space. Pictured: Crack throughout one among its most important roads

A drone captured photos of what seem like fissures within the floor on the Reykjanes Peninsula, close to Grindavik, in November

Pictured: A police officer inspects a crack within the street within the fishing city of Grindavik, November 15

On November 16, magmatic fuel was detected at a borehole in Svartsengi – 2.3 miles north of Grindavik – which consultants stated was a sign that an eruption is imminent. 

An eruption of molten rock from the magma tunnel beneath Reykjanes was the almost certainly state of affairs following weeks of seismic exercise, the top of the volcano division on the climate service Kristin Jonsdottir advised RUV radio station final month.

Monitoring indicated {that a} hall of magma, or semi-molten rock, extends below the neighborhood, Iceland’s Meteorological Office stated. The city of three,400 is about 31 miles southwest of the capital, Reykjavik.

Volcanologist Haraldur Sigurðsson beforehand stated that if an eruption have been to occur, he expects that it may erupt into the ocean and says Grindavik must be ‘reorganised’ so as to mitigate the disk of future widespread destruction.

‘I’m additionally apprehensive concerning the port. It does not take a lot to destroy this port, fill it with lava,’ Haraldur advised Iceland’s Morgunblaðið (MBL) newspaper.

‘There are each cracks there within the harbour and even when the magma comes up someplace exterior, it flows into the harbour, as a result of that is the melancholy. 

‘So, within the huge image, this city must be utterly reorganised,’ he added.

Asked by MBL’s reporter if he envisages a future during which the folks of Grindavik can return to their properties, he stated: ‘What did not folks do in Vestmannaeyjar (a city hit by an eruption in 1973)? I believe the city must be reorganised.’

The peninsula lately noticed a number of eruptions in unpopulated areas, however the present outbreak was believed to pose a direct threat to the city, authorities have stated.

Reykjanes is a volcanic and seismic hot-spot southwest of the capital Reykjavik. In March 2021, lava fountains erupted spectacularly from a 500-750-metre-long (1,640-2,460-foot-long) fissure within the floor within the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system.

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