A volcano is erupting near the southwestern Icelandic town of Grindavik. Seismic activity intensified overnight and the remaining residents of Grindavik were evacuated around 03:00 GMT. “A crack has opened up on both sides of the dikes that have begun to be built north of Grindavik,” Iceland’s met office says. “No lives are in danger, although infrastructure may be under threat,” Iceland’s president says.
Grindavik was evacuated in November, after another eruption, but some residents had been allowed home. Iceland has more than 30 active volcano systems.
Iceland’s President Gudni Johannesson says “no lives are in danger” after this morning’s volcanic eruption.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Johannesson confirms that Grindavik was successfully evacuated overnight.
Some infrastructure may be in danger, he says but adds there will be no interruption to flights – as has happened during previous eruptions.
This is the second volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwest Iceland in a month and the fifth since 2021.
Last month, an eruption started in what’s known as the Svartsengi volcanic system on 18 December.
The lava missed the town of Grindavik, although all its 4,000 residents had been evacuated beforehand.
Around 100 had returned to their homes before an evacuation order was again issued on Saturday, according to local authorities.
The alert level has been raised to “emergency” – the highest of the three-level scale which signals there could be a threat of harm to people, communities, property or the environment.
Iceland sits over what’s known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the boundary between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates – two of the largest on the planet.
The Earth’s crust comprises different plates that move against each other, have raised mountains and created volcanoes over millions of years.
The Eurasian and North American plates are moving apart by a few centimetres every year, making the country a hotbed of seismic and volcanic activity.
This allows magma to rise to the surface, which erupts as lava and/or ash.
Icelanders are used to volcanic activity and have built a successful tourism industry around it.
Other countries that sit on fault lines include Turkey – which, along with Syria, experienced the devastating earthquake in February last year.