Iceland’s president stated the nation is battling “great forces of nature” after molten lava from a volcano within the island’s southwest consumed a number of homes within the evacuated city of Grindavik.
President Gudni Thorlacius Johannesson stated in a televised handle late on Sunday that “a frightening interval of upheaval has begun on the Reykjanes Peninsula”, the place a long-dormant volcanic system has woke up.
A volcano on the peninsula erupted for the second time in lower than a month on Sunday morning. Authorities had ordered residents to go away the fishing city of Grindavik hours earlier as a swarm of small earthquakes indicated an imminent eruption.
Geophysicist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson stated on Monday morning that the eruption had “decreased significantly” in a single day, however that it was inconceivable to say when it might finish.
Grindavik, a city of three,800 individuals about 50km (30 miles) southwest of the capital, Reykjavik, was beforehand evacuated in November when the Svartsengi volcanic system woke up after nearly 800 years.
Since then, emergency employees have been constructing defensive partitions which have stopped a lot of the lava move from the brand new eruption in need of the city.
There have been no confirmed deaths because of the eruptions, however a workman is lacking after reportedly falling right into a crack opened by the volcano.
Iceland, which sits above a volcanic sizzling spot within the North Atlantic, averages one eruption each 4 to 5 years. Essentially the most disruptive in latest instances was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed clouds of ash into the ambiance and disrupted transatlantic air journey for months.
The most recent eruption isn’t anticipated to launch giant quantities of ash into the air. Operations at Keflavik Airport are persevering with as regular, stated Gudjon Helgason, spokesman for airport operator Isavia.
