Latest news "Nature is unpredictable" - New volcanic eruption in Iceland

For the tenth time since 2021 and for the seventh time in the past twelve months alone, the North Atlantic island of Iceland has experienced a spectacular volcanic eruption.

Once again, a kilometer-long fissure has opened up on the Reykjanes Peninsula southwest of the capital Reykjavik, and masses of glowing red lava are once again making their way to the earth's surface.

This morning, the lava flow reached an important road in the area, the Grindavíkurvegur, as well as the well-protected Njardvíkuræd hot water pipeline. The small fishing village of Grindavík was evacuated again, as was the Blue Lagoon, a geothermal bathing area that is particularly popular with tourists to Iceland.

Later, the lava masses covered the parking lot of the thermal baths and an adjacent small service building consisting of containers, as pictures from the Icelandic online newspaper Vísir showed. Special protective walls had already been erected to protect the lagoon itself. It was assumed that they would also serve their purpose in the current situation and protect the baths from the lava flow.

According to the Icelandic Meteorological Office, the eruption began shortly before midnight (local time). The scalding hot lava then gushed out of an estimated three-kilometer-long fissure in the earth. The volcanic activity appeared to have already reached its peak during the night. According to the weather office, there was nothing to suggest that it would increase further. The authority said that the eruption was significantly smaller than the last one that started in the area three months ago.

"Nature is unpredictable"

Unlike previous incidents of this kind, the eruption came as quite a surprise: Previous eruptions on the peninsula had always announced themselves with series of increasingly strong earthquakes lasting days or even weeks. That did not happen this time: A small earthquake swarm and the first signs of underground magma influence were recorded just three quarters of an hour before the eruption began.

The start of the eruption came as a surprise to those who had long since adjusted to life with a permanent volcanic hazard: Fannar Jónasson, the mayor of Grindavík, told Icelandic radio station RÚV that the eruption was unexpected. "But nature is unpredictable," he was quoted as saying by the broadcaster. The locals have now become accustomed to the evacuation of their village.

A sigh of relief in Grindavík

In a previous eruption in January, three houses in the foothills of Grindavík were engulfed by masses of lava - the first time in half a century that a volcanic eruption in Iceland had destroyed homes. This time, however, the location of the eruption appears to be more favorable for the village: According to previous findings, the lava did not flow in the direction of the small village, which was home to around 4,000 people before the eruptions and where only a few dozen houses are still inhabited.

The inhabitants of Grindavík can breathe a sigh of relief that the eruption occurred quite far north, said Jónasson. The Icelandic Civil Defense Authority announced that there was no danger in the area. Iceland's international airport in nearby Keflavík was also not affected. "Iceland remains a safe destination", the authority said.

The eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula are not like those from a classic volcanic mountain. Instead, the lava flows out of an elongated crack in the earth, which is why this type of eruption is also known as a fissure eruption. As a rule, this does not produce a large cloud of ash - unlike the eruption at the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic glacier in 2010, for example, whose kilometer-high cloud paralyzed international air traffic for days.

The fissure eruptions can be traced back to several volcanic systems with underground magma chambers. For almost 800 years, the earth beneath the sparsely populated peninsula in the southwest of Iceland had been at rest, before the first eruption occurred in March 2021. Researchers assume that the current series of eruptions could continue for decades - so the eruption that has now begun is unlikely to be the last.

SDA