Lava flows into town during Icelandic volcano eruption, igniting houses

2 min readJan 15, 2024

Two volcanic cracks opened up near the town of Grindavík in Iceland, and people set fire to their homes.

Volcanoes on the Reykjanes peninsula exploded early Sunday morning, sending lava into the fishing town.

“The worst case scenario” is what one expert called the eruption, and the whole town has been evacuated.

The lava is mostly contained by walls that were made after an eruption in December, but some of them have been broken through.

LAVA has blocked the main road into town.

Monday morning, Iceland’s President Gudni Johannesson told everyone to “stand together and have compassion for those who cannot be in their homes” in a live broadcast Friday afternoon.

AFP claimed that he said he hoped things would get better but that “anything can happen.”

The December eruption in the Svartsengi volcanic system was preceded by strong earthquake waves. Walls were built around the volcano in the weeks that followed to keep the molten rock away from Grindavík, which is home to about 4,000 people.

Some of the walls had been broken, the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said. This let lava into the town, where it burned down homes and businesses.

People who had moved back to Grindavík, which is in the southwest of Iceland, after the last eruption had to leave their houses again.

Robin Andrews, a science writer and volcanologist, said that the current eruption is “extremely dangerous and harmful” now that lava has reached the town.

According to what he said to the BBC, the flow of lava from the two present cracks shows “no sign of slowing down.”

“In terms of duration and severity of damage its impossible to map at this moment,” he stated.

He said that the aftermath of the eruption could be “fairly problematic” for people who already have breathing problems because sulfur dioxide, a gas released by volcanoes, can irritate the skin, eyes, nose, and throat.

PM Katrín Jakobsdóttir said that the government will meet on Monday to talk about how to help people who had to leave their homes find new places to live.

“Today is a black day for Grindavík and today is a black day for all of Iceland, but the sun will rise again,” she mentioned.

“We’ll handle this shock and anything else that comes our way together. We are praying for you and thinking about you.

It is now “emergency” in the country, which is the highest level of alert and means there is a chance of harm to people, towns, property, or the environment.

The eruption on Sunday was the fifth one to happen on the Reykjanes peninsula since 2021.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge runs through Iceland. It is where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet, which are two of the biggest plates in the world. There are 33 active volcanoes there.

Lava flows into town during Icelandic volcano eruption, igniting houses

Written by Daily News Latest

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