A volcano erupted overnight from Wednesday to Thursday on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwestern Iceland, the seventh since last December, meteorological services announced.
“An eruption began at Sundhnukagigar, near Stora Skogfell, at 23:14 GMT” that is, 00:14 Paris time on Wednesday, November 20, reported the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO). This announcement was preceded by a first message a quarter of an hour earlier that indicated a “increased seismic activity” in this area.
Live-streamed images show orange-red lava gushing from a long fissure surrounded by thick smoke. “The length of the fissure is estimated at 2.5 km and its southern end is at Sylingarfell. Considering the current situation, this eruption is smaller than the previous one.” which took place at the end of August, continues the IMO.
Questioned by public radio, Benedikt Ofeigsson, a specialist in deformation movements of the Earth’s crust at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, specified that “the flow [de lave] It is approximately 1,200 to 1,300 cubic meters per second”. “The eruption also allows us to clearly see that it is smaller. The spills are smaller and the lava does not flow as fast [qu’en août]. » No infrastructure was currently threatened.
An evacuated city
The lava flows are not directed towards the neighboring city of Grindavik, which was evacuated without difficulty, as were the hotels in the very touristy Blue Lagoon, whose pools were closed when the eruption began.
Most of Grindavik’s 4,000 inhabitants were evacuated a year ago, shortly before the first volcanic eruption in the region. Since then, almost all the houses have been sold to the State and almost all the residents have left. “About fifty houses were occupied in the last nights”declared Civil Protection. In January, during another eruption, three houses in this fishing village were engulfed in flames.
This is the seventh eruption in the region since December 2023, the last one at the end of August, on the same Reykjanes peninsula, where the Keflavik international airport, the largest in Iceland, is located. For the moment, air traffic is not affected, stated its operator Isavia. However, civil protection declared a state of emergency in the region, as always happens during an eruption near an inhabited area.
The Reykjanes Peninsula had not experienced an eruption for eight centuries, until March 2021. Others took place in August 2022 and July 2023. Volcanologists then warned that volcanic activity in the region had entered a new era.
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Iceland is home to 33 active volcanic systems, more than any other European country. It is located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a fault line on the ocean floor that separates the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates and causes earthquakes and eruptions.
