A volcano in southwestern Iceland started erupting Monday with lava fountains reaching as much as 330 ft and the glow seen from central Reykjavik. The placement of the fissure poses a danger to the close by Svartsengi Energy Plant and the city of Grindavík that was evacuated in November following heightened seismic exercise.
“We’re taking a look at a worst-case situation,” stated Thorvaldur Thordarson, a volcanologist in Iceland. “The eruption seems huge and solely about 2 kilometers from main infrastructure.”
1000’s of earthquakes had been detected in Iceland since late October, in response to the Icelandic Meteorological Workplace, the nation’s climate service. Consequently, the authorities had declared a state of emergency and evacuated Grindavik, a city close to the volcano of greater than 3,000 folks on Nov. 11. Properties and roads within the city had been broken by the earthquakes.
For the previous days, the Meteorological Workplace had been warning of a “vital probability of a volcanic eruption in coming days.”
The climate service had stated there was a “appreciable” danger of an eruption as a result of the underground magma shifting to the floor.
The nation has seen this earlier than, quite a bit.
There have been three eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland’s most populated nook and residential to its capital, within the final two years, and the authorities and the general public had been “extremely ready for such occasions,” the federal government stated in an announcement on Nov 11. “Iceland has one of many world’s simplest volcanic preparedness measures,” it stated on its web site.
The authorities had additionally raised the aviation alert to orange, as a result of a volcanic eruption might pose a danger to the plane flying within the North Atlantic if ash spewed into the sky.
Probably the most memorable volcanic eruptions in Iceland’s current previous was the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, one of many nation’s largest, which erupted in 2010. Whereas that eruption was comparatively small and induced no fatalities, the impression was widespread as a result of a ensuing ash cloud grounded much of Europe’s air travel for greater than per week.
The Eyjafjallajokull (pronounced EYE-a-fyat-la-jo-kutl) volcano had been dormant for practically two centuries earlier than it sprang again to life greater than 13 years in the past.
Iceland has a variety of volcanoes.
Volcanic eruptions are not uncommon in Iceland, which has fewer than 400,000 residents and about 130 volcanoes. Because the nineteenth century, not a decade has passed by with out one, Iceland’s vacationer web site tells guests. However the frequency of eruptions stays “completely random.”
The nation straddles two tectonic plates, that are themselves divided by an undersea mountain chain that oozes molten sizzling rock, or magma.
The present seismic exercise hasn’t impacted one in every of Iceland’s most infamous volcanoes, Katla, which some scientists fear is due for an eruption. Katla has erupted 5 occasions since 1721, at intervals starting from 34 to 78 years. The final main one was in 1918.
Egill Bjarnason contributed reporting from Reykjavík, Iceland.