Iceland volcano erupts, missing fishing town of Grindavik for now
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[December 19, 2023]
By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Tom Little
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Lava from a large volcanic eruption in Iceland
appeared to be flowing away from the only town in the area, offering
hope that homes and lives would be spared even though the seismic
activity could last months, officials said on Tuesday.
The government said flights were unlikely to be affected, quashing
international travel concerns lingering after the chaos that resulted
from the ash cloud caused by an eruption on the north Atlantic island in
2010.
The eruption late on Monday on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwest
Iceland spewed lava and smoke more than 100 metres (330 feet) into the
air after weeks of intense seismic activity.
"The eruption does not present a threat to life," an Icelandic
government statement said. "There are no disruptions to flights to and
from Iceland and international flight corridors remain open."
Authorities last month evacuated the nearly 4,000 inhabitants of the
fishing town of Grindavik about 40 km (25 miles) southwest of capital
city Reykjavik, letting them in intermittently to check on homes put at
risk by the tremors.
Hans Vera, 56, originally from Belgium but living in a house just east
of Grindavik since 1999, had just begun getting his hopes up that
residents would be allowed to return to home for good, or as close to it
as is possible on a volcanic island.
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But that all changed with when the eruption finally arrived after weeks
of anxious waiting.
"I don't see that in the near future they will let people get close to
Grindavik. So we are back in the waiting game," he said. He described
his home near the sea as a winter paradise -- and the prospect of not
being able to spend the Christmas holidays there with his family came as
a blow.
"We are not going to paradise this time around," he said.
Live footage of the eruption shown by Reuters showed bright yellow,
orange and red lava in sharp contrast against the sky.
The eruption opened a 4 km (2.5 mile) fissure. But at its southernmost
point the crack was still 3 km away from Grindavik, Iceland's
Meteorological Office said.
"The eruption is taking place north of the watershed, so lava does not
flow towards Grindavik," geologist Bjorn Oddson told public broadcaster
RUV.
BLUE LAGOON
Located between the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates,
among the largest on the planet, Iceland is a seismic and volcanic hot
spot because the two plates move in opposite directions.
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![](../images/121923PIX/news_v42.jpg)
A volcano spews lava and smoke as it erupts near Grindavik, Iceland,
December 19, 2023. Civil Protection of Iceland/Handout via REUTERS
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The eruption is happening about 30 km from Reykjavik. Keflavik
international airport is somewhat nearer but remains open. The Blue
Lagoon, a geothermal spa popular with tourists, has been largely
closed since the seismic activity was detected.
"It could potentially go on for several months, it could also just
stop later today or tomorrow," said Halldor Geirson, an associate
professor at Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of
Iceland.
Lava flows had decreased from 200-250 cubic meters per second in the
first two hours of the eruption to around a quarter of that by
Tuesday morning.
Geirson said most of the lava flowing into an area where there was
little infrastructure. But that could still change.
"There is still a threat to Grindavik, for sure. Now the lava is
flowing mostly to the north, but it depends on the topography and
where the openings are," he said.
FLIGHT IMPACT UNLIKELY
In 2010, ash clouds from eruptions at the Eyafjallajokull volcano in
the south of Iceland spread over large parts of Europe, grounding
some 100,000 flights in Europe and beyond, and forcing hundreds of
Icelanders to evacuate their homes.
Weather forecasting service AccuWeather said the current eruption
was very different from the one at Eyafjallajokull and that
preliminary information suggested it would not have a major impact
on air travel.
"If little to no volcanic ash is lofted into the atmosphere, there
may be no impact to aviation," AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon
Porter said.
The 2010 impact on air travel was largely caused by the interaction
of magma with the melting water from a glacier.
"This is a different case," said Luca D'Auria, director of the
Volcano Monitoring Area of the Instituto Volcanologico de Canarias
in Spain's Canary Islands, another volcanic hot spot.
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"The only possibility that the eruption would be more explosive and
therefore generate ash, volcanic ash, which can pose a problem for
the aviation, would be a propagation southward in the sea."
(Reporting by Tom Little, Louise Rasmussen in Copenhagen, Anna
Ringstrom in Stockholm and Terje Solsvik in Oslo; additional
reporting by Antoine Demaison for Reuters TV; Writing by Niklas
Pollard and Terje Solsvik;Editing by David Goodman and Alison
Williams)
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