The Icelandic authorities have declared an emergency situation after a series of earthquakes near Gindavík, in the southwest of this island in the North Atlantic, and have warned of a possible volcanic eruption, for which they have ordered a preventive evacuation of this city to 50 kilometers from the capital, Reykjavík.
“At this time, it is not possible to determine exactly if and where the magma could reach the surface. “There are indications that a considerable amount of magma is moving in an area extending from Sundhnjúkagígar in the north towards Grindavík,” the Icelandic Meteorological Service reported.
He specified that “the amount of magma involved is significantly higher than that observed in the largest magma intrusions associated with the Fagradalsfjall eruptions.”
The signs currently observed are similar to those on the eve of the first eruption of this volcano in 2021 and very similar to the seismic activity that was measured approximately a month before that eruption.
The most likely scenario now, taking the Fagradalsfjall eruption as a reference, is that “the magma takes several days (rather than hours) to reach the surface,” the meteorological authority added.
Between midnight and 2:00 p.m. local time on Friday, about 800 tremors were measured about three kilometers north of Grindavík, nine of them with a magnitude greater than 3.
