A state of emergency in Iceland after several earthquakes

“Significant changes have occurred in the seismic activity measured near Sundhnjokajijar, north of Grindavik,” Fedortovan warned late Friday. The theory that large amounts of magma flows in an underground tunnel during the night has been confirmed by satellite images and GPS data. morgenbladed.

– It is not possible to pump something into this space forever. The rock only has a certain curvature and controllability, and eventually the tension becomes so great that the roof breaks and the hole comes to the surface, says Arman Hosköldsson, a volcanologist and geochemist at the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland. To Morgenbladed.

Many rescue societies have done this I headed to Reykjanes and there were still others ready. Certainly the entire population of the town of Grindavík of around 3,300 and nearby residents were evacuated on Saturday morning to relatives or friends, or alternatively to relief centers such as Kopavogur, Keflavik and Selfoss. Many are said to have done so spontaneously, others with the help of the Red Cross, among others, with 1,700 people registering.

Power plants and other industries in the area have closed or limited their operations in the affected area, and the government has decided to erect some sort of defensive fence around the area, possibly over the weekend already. At midnight on Saturday, National Police Chief Feder Rennison declared a state of emergency in consultation with local police.

On Thursday night, the Reykjanes Peninsula in southern Iceland was rocked by a 4.8-magnitude earthquake and news broke internationally when the popular Blue Lagoon travel destination north of Grindavik closed operations for safety reasons. The quake was an escalation of seismic disturbances that had been ongoing for two weeks, and was followed by another handful of quakes above magnitude 4 on Thursday.

Morgunbladid met the American tourist couple Colin and Elizabeth, their daughter, and the mother of the man who went to Iceland to visit the Blue Lagoon in the first place. They say that for hours on the plane they looked longingly at photos of the spa facility, which was originally a wastewater basin for the Svartsinje geothermal power plant, but they realize that the authorities take the forces of nature seriously.

“It’s an exciting reminder, at least for me, that this is a place to live, and that nature is big and powerful,” says Elizabeth. morgenbladed.

It was Reykjanes Three volcanic eruptions since 2021 when the first occurred in the region in 800 years, the most recent in July. Currently, expertise is divided on whether the ongoing unrest will cause a fourth outbreak. Volcanologist Robin George Andrews tweeted that a crack in the Earth’s surface could open next to or even in the town of Grindavik and that the amount of magma is greater now than in the last three eruptions.