2024-01-14 18:08:04
A new volcanic eruption began near Grindavík in Iceland on Sunday morning. Images from a webcam north of the town that was evacuated in November, home to around 4,000 people, showed glowing masses of lava around nine in the morning less than a kilometer away from the settlement areas. In the afternoon, the lava reached the outskirts of the city and has already caused several houses to burn. A section of road number 43 leading into the city from the north was also buried under glowing molten rock.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO), which is also responsible for Iceland’s volcanoes, confirmed the start of a new eruption at 7:57 a.m. local time (8:57 a.m. German time), but has not yet given any details about the amount of lava escaping or the extent of the previous damage is known. However, the southernmost end of the fissure appeared south of the wall, the construction of which began in recent weeks to protect the city. This allowed the lava to move unhindered towards Grindavík.
As the IMO previously reported at 6:15 a.m. local time, intense earthquake activity occurred along the Sundhnúkagígar crater around 3 a.m. More than 200 quakes were recorded within three hours, the strongest with a magnitude of 3.5 at 4:07 a.m. local time near Hagafell, two kilometers northeast of Grindavík city center. At the same time, sensors and GPS stations showed significant ground movements, which must be interpreted as a result of magma movements.
Volcanic activity near Grindavík on the southern coast of the Reykjanes Peninsula began on October 25 with the first earthquakes caused by underground magma movements. Authorities declared a state of emergency on November 10 and began evacuating the city that same evening. In fact, the earth movements had become so violent that deep cracks had appeared in the urban area of Grindavík.
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The cause was the rise of magma directly beneath the Svartsengi geothermal power plant, which supplies the entire peninsula with energy and heat, and the neighboring “Blue Lagoon” thermal outdoor pool, a major tourist attraction. However, the rock layers beneath Svartsengi are too resistant, so the magma that swelled up sought a path to the east and there, at a depth of several hundred meters, along a fault line running from northeast to southwest, it formed a 16-kilometer-long so-called dyke, sometimes referred to in the media as a “magma tunnel.” describe. This magma-filled fissure runs right under Grindavík, which is why an eruption in the city area could not be ruled out.
The lava emerged on December 18th northeast of Hagafell and three kilometers from the city limits. The lava fountains, up to 100 meters high, could still be seen in the capital Reykjavík. There were no major damages or even casualties during this first eruption. However, a worker who was busy filling one of the earthquake cracks in Grindavík has been missing since Wednesday, January 10th. He and the construction machine he was operating fell into the crevasse. While the machine was found, there was no trace of the man.
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