[1/6]Street work continues after cracks appear on the road due to volcanic activity near Grindavik, Iceland, obtained by Reuters on November 14, 2023. Iceland Road Administration via Facebook/ Share via REUTERS Licensing rights acquired
GRINDAVIK, Iceland, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Icelandic authorities were preparing on Tuesday to build protective walls around a geothermal power plant in the country’s southwest, which they hope will protect it from lava flows amid fears of an impending volcanic eruption.
Seismic activity and underground lava flows intensified on the Reykjanes peninsula near the capital Reykjavik over the weekend, prompting authorities to evacuate nearly 4,000 people from the fishing town of Grindavik on Saturday.
The probability of an eruption remains high despite a decrease in seismic activity, the Icelandic Meteorological Institute said in a statement on Tuesday.
Nearly 800 earthquakes were recorded in the area between midnight and noon on Tuesday, fewer than the two previous days, it said.
“Less seismic activity usually precedes an eruption because you’ve come so close to the surface that you can’t build up much stress to cause large earthquakes,” said Ryke Pedersen, who heads the Northern Volcanology Center based in Reykjavík.
“It should never be taken as a sign that the epidemic is not on its way,” she said.
Authorities said they were preparing to build a large dike designed to divert lava flows around the Svartsengi geothermal power plant, located just over 6 kilometers (4 miles) from Grindavik.
Justice Minister Gudrun Hafsteinsdottir told state broadcaster RUV that equipment and materials that could fill 20,000 trucks were being moved to the plant.
The construction of the protective dyke around the power plant was awaiting official approval from the government.
A spokesman for HS Orka, the plant’s operator, said it supplies electricity to the entire country, although the outage will not affect Reykjavik’s power supply.
Almost all of Grindavik’s 3,800 residents were briefly allowed into their homes on Monday and Tuesday to collect their belongings, Iceland’s civil protection and emergency management department said.
In Grindavik, long cracks ran through the center of the town, leaving its main street impassable as steam rose from the ground.
Some of the houses were still alight, but the town was abandoned beyond the odd car and a handful of locals gathering their essentials before Grindavik was once again declared off-limits.
Local resident Kristin Maria Birgisdottir, who works in the city’s municipality, told Reuters on Tuesday that she only had the clothes she wore to work on the day the city was evacuated.
“I’m preparing in case I have a chance to visit my house and pick up some of my belongings,” said Birgisdottir, who moved into a summer house with her family.
Some residents had to be taken to Grindavik in emergency services vehicles, while most residents were allowed to drive into Grindavik in their personal cars, accompanied by emergency personnel.
Most pets and farm animals had been rescued from Grindavik by Monday evening, according to charity Dyrfinna.
In the afternoon, new gauges installed near Grindavík by the Met Office detected elevated levels of sulfur dioxide, prompting Grindavík to be fully evacuated again at short notice, slightly ahead of schedule.
The agency said in an update that while there were no other signs that an eruption had begun, it could not be ruled out because gas does not appear unless magma is high in the Earth’s crust.
Additional reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, Johannes Gottfredsen-Birkebeck, Jakob Grönholt-Pedersen and Niklas Pollard; editing by Christina Fincher, Alex Richardson, Mark Heinrich, Alexandra Hudson
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