Residents of Evacuated Town Get Terrible News - They Won't Be Going Home Anytime Soon
People in southwest Iceland remained on edge Saturday, waiting to see whether a volcano rumbling under the Reykjanes Peninsula will erupt. Civil protection authorities said that even if it doesn’t, it likely will be months before it is safe for residents evacuated from the danger zone to return home.
The fishing town of Grindavik was evacuated a week ago as magma – molten or semi-molten rock – rumbled and snaked under the earth amid thousands of tremors.
The tremors have left a jagged crack running through the community, thrusting the ground upward by 3 feet or more in places.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office said there is a “significant likelihood” that an eruption will occur somewhere along the nine-mile magma tunnel, with the “prime location” an area north of Grindavik near the Helgafell mountain.
Grindavik, a town of 3,400, sits on the Reykjanes Peninsula, about 31 miles southwest of the capital, Reykjavik, and not far from Keflavik Airport, Iceland’s main facility for international flights.
The nearby Blue Lagoon geothermal resort, one of Iceland’s top tourist attractions, has been shut at least until the end of November because of the volcano danger.
Grindavik residents are being allowed to return for five minutes each to rescue valuable possessions and pets.
A volcanic system on the Reykjanes Peninsula has erupted three times since 2021 after being dormant for 800 years.
Previous eruptions occurred in remote valleys without causing damage.
Iceland sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic and averages an eruption every four to five years. The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and grounded flights across Europe for days because of fears that ash could damage airplane engines.
Scientists say a new eruption likely would produce lava but not an ash cloud.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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