Icelandic police have declared a state of emergency after lava erupted from a new volcanic fissure on the Reykjanes peninsula. The eruption is the fourth to hit the region since December.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) announced in a statement on Saturday that the volcanic eruption “started between Skogfell and Hagafell on the Reykjanes Peninsula.” Live video images showed glowing lava and billowing smoke.
Iceland’s Civil Protection and Emergency Management Agency said it had sent a helicopter to narrow down the exact location of the new crack. Authorities also announced that police had declared a state of emergency due to the eruption.
According to IMO, this eruption occurred on February 8 near the same location as the previous eruption. It added that the lava appeared to be flowing south towards a dike built to protect the fishing village of Grindavik.
IMO said the lava was flowing westward, as it was on February 8, and the fissure was estimated to be 2.9 kilometers (1.8 miles) long. Minutes before the eruption, authorities issued a statement saying seismic activity indicated an eruption was becoming more likely.
The IMO said on Friday that magma is building up underground in the region and “could end with new magma intrusion and possibly an eruption.” It said it could happen “with little warning.”
Local media reported that Iceland’s famous Blue Lagoon geothermal spa and Grindavik had also been evacuated.
Approximately 4,000 residents of Grindavik were evacuated on November 11 and allowed to return to their homes on February 19, but only about 100 chose to do so.
Hundreds of tremors caused damage to buildings and large cracks in roads. After the earthquake, a volcanic fissure appeared on December 18th, and the village was spared.
However, in January a fissure opened on the edge of the town, sending lava into the road and reducing three homes to ashes, followed by a third eruption near the village on February 8.
As of Friday, more than 300 Grindavik residents had applied to the state to sell their homes.
The eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula has also raised concerns about the Svartsengi power plant, which provides electricity and water to around 30,000 people on the peninsula.
Since the first eruption in the area, the power plant has been evacuated and remotely operated, and a dike has been built to protect it.
Iceland has 33 active volcanic systems, the most in Europe. It straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a rift in the ocean floor that separates the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.
However, until March 2021, the Reykjanes Peninsula had not experienced an eruption for eight centuries.
Further eruptions occurred in August 2022 and in July and December 2023, which volcanologists say likely marked the beginning of a new era of seismic activity in the region.
