I have close friends from Grindavík, it’s surreal and sad watching its destruction live on television. A building is currently being surrounded by lava on one of the livestreams. Luckily it’s only an abandoned research facility, but it’s only a matter of time until it reaches the nearest residencies.
Here’s some good local coverage. Pretty crazy! https://youtu.be/Qyi8uDkQjvw
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Again?!
The eruption marks the fifth on the Reykjanes peninsula since 2021. There was a powerful volcanic eruption near Grindavík on 18 December after weeks of earthquakes.
Yup, again. Also apparently the barriers they were building haven’t worked. The lava is currently 450m away from the nearest houses.
Edit: Houses have been on fire for the last hour or two.
Based on videos from one of the major lava-themed entertainment venues who has been posting updates for two months, the “barriers” for Grindavik were barely started, with work only beginning some time after January 4th or 5th. The primary focus of the public work was in building the barriers to protect the regional power plant to the east of the fissures (and hot springs resort area just east and north the power plant). IIRC, those barriers took a month to construct.
The subsurface dam/inclusion runs pretty much directly under Grindavik, so if an active eruption opens along the southern edge of the magma inclusion there will be no way to prevent damage to those houses adjacent.
Disc: I’m neither a seismologist nor a volcanologist, but I’ve seen Journey to the Center of the Earth. Oh, and I was in Grindavik in October.
Yeah there was a new fissure near to the houses, now a few of them have started burning. However it’s kind of funky that the greenhouse closest to the big fissure is still perfectly fine (well maybe not perfectly, I imagine they have stuff inside they needs to be kept cool) while the main lava flow from the big fissure has gone right by them.
These are the live streams that I’ve been following:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqudj0x0POA
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvcP4kVVOnk
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3tpT3qTznY - this one covers 4 views
There was also a live sttream from an American geologist, that was kind of cool as he had a drone camera for a while. It was some funky set up where he was connected via Starlink to watch, but also the pilot was connected (maybe also via Starlink) from somewhere closer. He had some properly good close up shots of the new fissure near the houses as it was developing, however the stream stopped a while before the houses caught fire.
The other non-live set of videos I saw was from an Icelandic lady called Silki, she had some good bits highlighting the workers trying to save their equipment like daredevils, literally only 20m or so away from the flow. Even now, they’re still nearby watching, you can see their trucks on the live streams. She’s still putting videos out and I expect will continue updating.
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https://www.piped.video/watch?v=Bqudj0x0POA
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=hvcP4kVVOnk
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=t3tpT3qTznY
live sttream from an American geologist
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Ah, that’s a shame, they placed the barriers on an area around the town that had never had an eruption (just lava).
Looking at the live videos I have to admit I had to laugh initially, it looks so much like Mother mature just saying FU to our attempts to control her, it stops for the barrier, has a gap, then pops up again just outside town. (Man made lava barrier route (ish - as far as I can see, guessing in the distance, if even built) highlighted - it even left a nice gap for the barrier!)
I guess it just shows how you can’t trust volcanos!
The barriers would have worked too ☹ (lava from the main vent has been redirected away)
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Seismic activity had intensified overnight and residents of Grindavik were evacuated at about 3am (0300 GMT) on Sunday, the Icelandic public broadcaster RUV reported.
“A crack has opened up on both sides of the dikes that have begun to be built north of Grindavik,” the MetOffice wrote.
Live images showed jets of glowing orange lava spewing up against the dark winter sky.
Grindavik, a small fishing village of about 4,000 people, was evacuated as a precaution on 11 November.
Since then, residents have been allowed to return for brief periods, before an evacuation was again ordered overnight.
Iceland is home to 33 active volcano systems, the highest number in Europe.
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