Icelandic officials are preparing for the potential for an eruption from one of the country’s many volcanoes after a series of recent earthquakes.
CNN reported on Thursday that local officials warned residents of the southwestern region of the country, including the capital Reykjavik, that an eruption is possible after thousands of earthquakes in the last few 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’s been happening for more than a week now,” he said. a professor of volcanology at the University of Iceland, Þorvaldur Þórðarson, in an interview with the network. “We are struggling with ‘why’ right now. Why is this happening? It is very likely that we have a magma intrusion in the crust there. It’s definitely getting closer to the surface, but we’re trying to figure out if it’s even closer to it. “
Ðórðarson’s team released images on Wednesday of potential lava flows that did not predict that any city in the country would be affected by potential eruptions. However, an important road linking the country’s largest airport to Reykjavik may be less fortunate. Officials do not expect air travel to be affected by a potential eruption, according to Bloomberg.
“Based on the current model, no major city is in danger,” Ármann Höskuldsson, another volcanologist, told CNN.
Thousands of earthquakes have hit the southwestern Reykjanes area in the past week, including more than 2,600 in the past 48 hours, the meteorological office of its website said on Thursday. A few dozen were of magnitude 3 or greater. Hill has suffered a number of earthquakes in the last month.
A resident of the capital told CNN that the earthquakes were almost constant.
“It’s very unusual to feel the Earth shake 24 hours a day for a whole week. It makes you feel very small and powerless against nature,” said Auður Alfa Ólafsdóttir.