Icelandic police on Saturday declared a state of emergency as lava spewed from a new volcanic fissure on the Reykjanes Peninsula, the fourth eruption to hit the area since December last year.
A “volcanic eruption has started between stora Skogfell and Hagafell on the Reykjanes Peninsula,” the Icelandic Met Office (IMO) said in a statement.
Live video images showed glowing lava and billowing smoke.
Photo: AFP / Handout / Icelandic Coast Guard
The Icelandic Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management said it had sent a helicopter to narrow down the exact location of the new fissure and that police had declared a state of emergency due to the eruption.
It close to the same location as a previous eruption on Feb. 8, the IMO said.
Lava appeared to flow south toward the dykes built to protect the fishing village Grindavik, it said.
Just after 10pm, “the southern lava front was just 200m from the barriers on the eastern side of Grindavik,” the IMO said, adding that it was moving at about 1kph.
Lava was also flowing west, as it did on Feb. 8, and the length of the fissure was estimated to be 2.9km, it said.
“From initial assessments of Web camera imagery and aerial photographs from the helicopter flight, the eruption is thought to be the largest [in terms of magma discharge] of the three previous fissure eruptions from the Sundhnukur crater row,” IMO said, adding that the assessment was based only on the first hour of “eruptive activity.”
Minutes before the eruption, the agency had issued a statement saying that seismic activity indicated that there was an increased chance of an eruption.
“The pre-eruptive warning phase was very short,” the IMO said.
On Friday, the IMO said that magma was accumulating under the ground in the area “which could end with a new magma intrusion and possibly an eruption.”
That could happen “with very little warning,” it said.
Iceland’s famed Blue Lagoon geothermal spa had been evacuated, as well as Grindavik, local media reported.
The roughly 4,000 residents of Grindavik were only cleared to return to their homes on Feb. 19 after having been evacuated on Nov. 11, although only about 100 chose to do so.
On that occasion, hundreds of tremors damaged buildings and opened up huge cracks in roads.
The quakes were followed by a volcanic fissure on Dec. 18 that spared the village.
However, a fissure opened right on the town’s edge in January, sending lava flowing into the streets and reducing three homes to ashes, followed by a third eruption near the village on Feb. 8.
The eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula have also raised fears for the Svartsengi power plant, which supplies electricity and water to about 30,000 people on the peninsula.
The plant was evacuated and has been run remotely since the first eruption in the region, and dykes have been built to protect it.
Until March 2021, the Reykjanes peninsula had not experienced an eruption for eight centuries.
Leading volcanologists say it is probably the start of a new era of seismic activity in the region.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
RSS