Iceland is facing "tremendous forces of nature," the country's president warned on Monday, after molten lava from a volcano in the southwest of the island destroyed several homes in the evacuated town of Grindavík.
President Gudni Th. Johannesson said in a televised address Sunday night that "a tumultuous period has begun on the Reykjanes Peninsula," where a long-dormant volcanic system has awakened.
Lava from the volcano approaches the village of Grindavík. Photo: AP
A volcano on the peninsula erupted Sunday morning for the second time in less than a month. Authorities had ordered people to leave the fishing village of Grindavík a few hours earlier, as a series of small quakes pointed to an imminent eruption.
The eruption "subsided considerably" overnight, geophysicist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson said, but it was impossible to say when it would end.
Grindavík, a town of 3,800 about 50 kilometers southwest of the capital Reykjavik, had already been evacuated in November when the Svartsengi volcanic system reactivated after nearly 800 years.
The volcano eventually erupted on December 18 and ejected lava flows towards Grindavík. Residents were allowed to return to their homes on 22 December.
Since then, emergency workers have built defensive walls that stopped much of the lava flow from the new eruption before it reached the town.
No one has died in the eruptions, although one worker is reported missing after falling into a crevasse opened by the volcano.
"We don't yet know how this eruption will develop, but we must take the measures that are within our reach," the president said.
A helicopter approaches the lava in Grindavík. Photo: Halldor Kolbeins/ AFP
"We continue to hope for as good an outcome as possible in the face of these tremendous forces of nature," he added. "We will continue with our responsibilities and stand together."
A busy area
Iceland is located in an area of high volcanic activity in the North Atlantic and averages an eruption every four to five years. The most disruptive in recent times was the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in 2010, which ejected huge clouds of ash and forced the closure of airspace in Europe.
The new eruption was not expected to cause a large amount of ash. Operations at Keflavík airport were continuing normally, said Gudjon Helgason, a spokesman for airport operator Isavia.
With information from the Associated Press