Officials in Iceland are preparing for a possible eruption of one of the country’s many volcanoes following a wave of recent earthquakes.
CNN reported Thursday that local officials have warned residents of the country’s southwest region, including Reykjavik’s capital, that an eruption is possible after thousands of temblors in recent days.
“Of course it worries people. For this region this is actually quite unusual, not because of the type of earthquakes or their intensity, but because of their duration. It has been going on for over a week now,” said a professor of volcanology at the University of Iceland. , Þorvaldur Þórðarson, in an interview with the network. “We are currently struggling with the ‘why’. Why is this happening? We are very likely to get magma into the crust there. It certainly got closer to the surface, but we’re trying to find out if it gets even closer.”
Þórðarson’s team released images on Wednesday of potential lava flows that did not predict that cities in the country would be affected by potential eruptions. However, a major road connecting the country’s largest airport with Reykjavik may be less fortunate. Officials don’t expect air travel to be affected by a possible eruption, Bloomberg said.
“Based on the current model, no major city is at risk,” Ármann Höskuldsson, another volcanologist, told CNN.
Thousands of earthquakes have hit the southwestern region of Reykjanes in the past week, including more than 2,600 in the past 48 hours, the country’s meteorological office said on its website Thursday. Several dozen were magnitude 3 or higher. The Hill has hit a number of recorded earthquakes in the last month.
A resident of the capital told CNN that the earthquakes were almost constant.
“It is very unusual to feel the earth vibrate 24 hours a day for a week. It makes you feel very small and powerless against nature,” said Auður Alfa Ólafsdóttir.