The power of the eruption “seems to be decreasing”, the Icelandic Meteorological Institute said on Tuesday morning. It is located a few kilometers from Grindavik, a town of around 4,000 inhabitants already evacuated in November after strong seismic activity.
The volcanic eruption that began during the night from Monday to Tuesday southwest of the Icelandic capital Reykjavík begins to lose intensity, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office. The institute adds that the eruptive fissure is approximately 4 kilometers long.
The country’s civil protection is on alert.The Icelandic authorities created a security zone in Grindavík, evacuated a few weeks earlier. All roads around the city are closed, and are expected to remain closed for the next few days, police announced on Facebook. According to the authorities, in the current situation, the population is in no danger.
A spectacle that attracts many curious people. “I’m very happy to be here, at this time, to be able to see this natural phenomenon happening. (…) It’s just something out of a movie!” enthuses Robert Donald Forrester, an American tourist.
Ael Kermarec, a French tourist guide living in Iceland, is more reserved: “This time there’s a lot going on, but the town of Grindavík might end up under the lava flowing behind us… I have mixed feelings to be honest. Let’s see how it goes and how long it lasts. is still amazing to see but it’s a bittersweet feeling.”
Air traffic does not suffer “for the moment no disturbance” specifies the operator of Icelandic airports, Isavia.
Since March 2021, several volcanic eruptions in an uninhabited area nearby have become major tourist attractions, attracting nearly 680,000 visitors, according to the Icelandic Tourism Board. However, the head of civil protection and emergency management in Iceland Vidir Reynisson warned that the phenomenon observed since Monday “is not a tourist rash and you have to look at it from a very far distance”.
