(Reykjavik) Icelandic authorities declared a state of emergency on Friday after a series of earthquakes shook the Reykjanes peninsula in the southwest of the country, raising fears of a volcanic eruption in the region.
“The chief of the national police […] declares a state of emergency for civil defense due to intense seismic activity in Sundhnjukagigar, north of Grindavik,” civil protection said in a statement.
“Earthquakes may become more severe” and “this series of events could lead to an eruption,” the administration warned.
According to the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO), an eruption could occur “within a few days”.
Evacuation plans have been put in place for the village of Grindavik, which has some 4,000 inhabitants, located three kilometers southwest of the area where the seismic swarm (series of tremors) was recorded on Friday.
Civil protection also announced that it was sending the patrol boat Thor to Grindavik “for security purposes”.
On Thursday, the “Blue Lagoon”, a tourist site near Grindavik famous for its geothermal spas, had already been closed as a precaution.
Around 12:30 p.m. (Eastern time) on Friday, two earthquakes, the strongest of which had a magnitude of 5.2 according to initial IMO assessments, were felt as far away as the capital Reykjavik, about forty of kilometers, and over a large part of the southern coast of the country.
Some 24,000 tremors have been recorded on the peninsula since late October, according to the IMO, with a “dense swarm” of nearly 800 earthquakes recorded between midnight and 9 a.m. Eastern on Friday.
The IMO noted an accumulation of magma at a depth of five kilometers which, if it came to the surface, would trigger a volcanic eruption.
Since 2021, three eruptions have occurred on the Reykjanes Peninsula, in March 2021, August 2022 and July 2023, all far from infrastructure or populated areas.
Iceland has 33 active volcanic systems, the highest number in Europe.
During its last eruption in 2010, Eyjafjallajökull blocked European skies and led to the cancellation of 100,000 flights, with ten million passengers stranded.