A volcanic eruption continued Tuesday morning in southwest Iceland with a power that appeared to be declining.
A volcanic eruption continued Tuesday morning in Iceland with a power that appeared to be declining, in an area located south of Reykjavik where seismic activity had been very intense since the beginning of November, announced the Icelandic Meteorological Institute (IMO).
The power of the eruption “seems to be rather diminishing”, the IMO wrote on its website. The eruption began on Monday at 10:17 p.m. (GMT) following an earthquake around 9:00 p.m.he had previously indicated.
“That activity is already decreasing is not an indication of the duration of the eruption, but rather that the eruption is stabilizing,” adds the institute, noting that a similar trend was observed at the beginning of the previous eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula.
The crack is approximately four kilometers long, specified the IMO which must update its analysis at 09:00 GMT. The institute had previously estimated it at around 2.8 km, three times larger than during the last eruption last summer.
This new eruption, the fourth in two years, took place three kilometers from a village of 4,000 inhabitants, Grindavikevacuated since November 11 after the declaration of a state of emergency in the region following a significant accumulation of magma.
According to the IMO, the aviation color code had changed to red, before quickly returning to orange in the absence of an ash cloud.
“For the moment, there is no disruption to arrivals or departures at Keflavik airport,” Icelandic airport operator ISAVIA said overnight on its website, with traffic being relatively low at this time. late.
A strike by air traffic controllers planned for Tuesday, however, should have some impact for many travelers.
New volcanic cycle?
All roads around Grindavík are closed and are expected to remain closed for the next few days, police announced on Facebook, specifying that the population is in no danger in the current state.
In 2021, 2022 and last July, volcanic eruptions, in an uninhabited area nearby, had become major tourist attractions, attracting nearly 680,000 visitors, according to the Icelandic Tourist Board.
The head of civil protection and emergency management in Iceland Vídir Reynisson warned that this new eruption “is not a tourist eruption and you have to observe it from very far away”, on local public television RUV.
In October, signs of soil swelling were detected near the “Blue Lagoon”, famous hot baths with turquoise waters very popular with tourists. The site partially reopened on Sunday.
Until March 2021, the Reykjanes peninsula, south of the capital Reykjavik, had been spared from eruptions for eight centuries.
From, there were two others, in August 2022 and July 2023a 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 land of fire and ice, the most volcanic region in Europe
Overnight, images from local media, whose cameras have been installed near the volcano for weeks, showed incandescent orange lava gushing vigorously from a fissure.
“No country better prepared”
“Our thoughts are (…) with the local population (of Grindavík, Editor’s note), we hope for the best, but it is clear that this is a considerable eruption,” the head of government wrote on Facebook Icelandic, Katrín Jakobsdóttir.
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.
“No country is better prepared for natural disasters than Iceland,” the Prime Minister said on November 18 during a press conference.
In 2010, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, in the south of the island, caused the greatest 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.