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Photo: Anton Brink / EPO

After the second volcanic eruption within four weeks, Iceland is looking spellbound at the situation in the evacuated town of Grindavík. Several houses have already been engulfed and destroyed by a lava flow after the molten rock reached the evacuated coastal town for the first time. On Sunday evening, glowing red lava continued to bubble up from two elongated cracks in the earth.

"Today is a black day for Grindavík and today is a black day for the whole of Iceland. But the sun will rise again," Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir said at a press briefing of the Civil Defense in the evening, according to the Icelandic radio station RÚV. Together, we will overcome this shock and whatever may come." The head of civil protection, Vídir Reynisson, said that Sunday's events would be remembered for a long time and that we were probably only seeing the beginning of a chain of such events.

Iceland's President Gudni Th. Jóhannesson called on his compatriots to stand by and support the people of Grindavík in an evening address to the nation. "We Icelanders do this together. We will not give up," he was quoted as saying by RÚV after the fifth eruption in the southwest of the North Atlantic island since 2021.

Another series of earthquakes

The 4000-inhabitant town of Grindavík had already been evacuated on Sunday night, when the renewed eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula southwest of Reykjavík had been announced with another series of earthquakes. At 7:57 a.m., the eruption finally began, when the first lava gushed out of an elongated fissure a few hundred meters north of Grindavík.

Just a few hours later, a sea of lava had formed in the area, glowing red at dawn. The weather agency Vedurstofa said on Sunday evening that the crack was around 900 meters long.

Even this lava came dangerously close to Grindavík. In the midday hours, however, the earth opened up in another place – in a fissure a good hundred meters long directly on the northern outskirts of the town. From there, lava flowed down the valley before setting fire to or burying at least three houses. Since the place had been evacuated, there was no danger to human lives – but there was a danger to the belongings of the affected residents.

Grindavík is located about 40 kilometers southwest of Reykjavík. The site had already been affected by the previous eruption in mid-December – not by the lava, however, but by several earthquakes that had announced the eruption. The quakes had caused deep cracks in roads and other damage.

The last time an eruption occurred in the area was late in the evening of 18 December, when lava first gushed out of a fissure in the earth that was initially several kilometres long. However, the eruption decreased significantly in intensity within a few days. Even before Christmas, no liquid lava was visible on the earth's surface. In the end, the inhabitants of Grindavík were able to spend the holidays in their own homes, but with constant uncertainty because the earth beneath them had not come to rest.

wit/dpa