residents evacuated after new volcanic eruption near Grindavik port

Residents were urgently evacuated overnight. A new volcanic eruption began on the morning of Sunday January 14, north of the fishing port of Grindavik, in the southwest of Iceland. Seismic activity accelerated sharply during the night and the few dozen residents who were resettled in this town were evacuated around 3 a.m., according to Icelandic public radio and television. The eruption then began around 8 a.m. north of Grindavik, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO), and surveillance images show large flows of bright orange lava along a fissure at daybreak. Icelandic.

“A new fissure has opened just outside the city limits of Grindavik”, reported the IMO in a new bulletin at midday. The agency announced early in the morning that a first crack had been created “on both sides of the defenses which began to be built north of Grindavík”about 450 meters from the town. “The city has already been successfully evacuated overnight and no lives are in danger, but infrastructure could be at risk. Flights are not interrupted”Icelandic President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson said in a message on X.

This is the fifth volcanic eruption in Iceland in almost three years. The previous one took place less than a month ago, on the evening of December 18, in this same area, located about forty kilometers southwest of the capital, Reykjavik.