Iceland | Construction of fortifications in preparation for a possible eruption

Construction work is taking place around the Svartsengi power plant and the Blue Lagoon to erect fortifications as a volcanic eruption looms in Grindavik, Iceland.

On November 11, at dawn, the picturesque village, located 40 km from Reykjavik, the capital, was evacuated as a precaution after hundreds of earthquakes caused by the movement of magma under the earth’s crust – a precursor to a volcanic eruption.

Thousands of small earthquakes have since continued to shake the area.

Road torn apart by huge cracks, cracked buildings… The place that looks like a postcard is now upside down.

“There is a new flow of magma in this crack, and it is widening,” said geophysicist Freysteinn Sigmundsson last week. The hundreds of earthquakes that shook Grindavik were caused by a massive accumulation of magma in a 15 kilometer long fissure located 2 to 5 km underground.

As long as this flow continues, the probability of an eruption remains high.

The most likely location for an eruption “is north of the town of Grindavik.”