Lava is flowing into Grindavik as Iceland’s President said the country is facing a “daunting” time after a fresh volcanic eruption.
An expert fears the “worst-case scenario” has become the reality in Iceland as lava has flowed into people’s homes for the first time, torching at least three.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office said the volcano in the southwest of the country erupted for the second time in less than a month on Sunday, suspecting the fissure had since forced itself under the town of Grindavik.
President Gudni Th Johannesson said in a televised address on Sunday that “a daunting period of upheaval has begun on the Reykjanes peninsula”, where a long-dormant volcanic system has awakened.
When asked if the worst-case scenario had happened, Benedikt Halldórsson, an expert in earthquake activity at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, told The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service: “Yes, I don’t think it’s possible to imagine anything worse than it erupting in a settlement and lava flowing onto houses.”
Geophysicist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson said on Monday morning that the eruption had “decreased considerably” overnight, but that it was impossible to say when it would end.
Nearly 4,000 residents were evacuated. No one has been killed in the eruptions, but a workman is missing after reportedly falling into a crack opened by the volcano.