In Grindavik, Iceland, the night sky was lit up with orange jets of lava as a volcano erupted for the fourth time in just three months on Saturday evening.
The eruption created a crack in the earth nearly 3 kilometers (almost 2 miles) long, stretching between the Stóra-Skógfell and Hagafell mountains on the Reykjanes Peninsula, according to Iceland’s Meteorological Office.
For weeks, the Met Office had been warning that an eruption was likely due to the accumulation of magma, or semi-molten rock, beneath the surface.
The eruption prompted the evacuation of hundreds from the Blue Lagoon thermal spa, a prime tourist spot in Iceland, as reported by the national broadcaster RUV.
Despite the eruption, no flight disruptions were reported at Keflavik, Iceland’s main airport.
Located a few kilometers northeast of Grindavik, a coastal town with a population of 3,800 situated about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Reykjavik, the eruption site had seen previous evacuations before the initial eruption in December. Some residents, having returned, found themselves evacuating once more on Saturday.
The awakening of the Svartsengi volcanic system in November, after nearly 800 years of dormancy, led to the evacuation of Grindavik. This awakening was marked by earthquakes that opened large cracks in the ground north of the town.
The volcano first erupted on December 18, with lava flowing away from Grindavik. A second eruption on January 14 directed lava towards the town. Despite the bolstered defensive walls stopping some of the flow, several buildings were overtaken by lava.
Both of these eruptions were short-lived, lasting only a few days. A third eruption on February 8 quickly subsided, but not before a lava river cut off heat and hot water to thousands by engulfing a pipeline.
According to RUV, geophysicist Magnús Tumi Guðmundsson described this latest eruption as the most powerful yet, with some lava threatening the defensive barriers around Grindavik.
Iceland, positioned over a volcanic hotspot in the North Atlantic, is no stranger to eruptions and has developed a high level of expertise in managing them. The most disruptive eruption in recent memory was in 2010, when the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted, sending vast ash clouds into the sky and causing extensive airspace closures over Europe.
While no deaths have been confirmed from the recent eruptions, there has been a report of a worker missing after falling into a fissure opened by the volcano.