Iceland volcano latest updates today: Eruption could happen within 30 minutes

Authorities in Iceland have ordered the construction of two giant walls to protect a power plant in the event of an imminent volcanic eruption as they fear the situation could change with “little warning”.

One wall was made 26ft high to fortify the Svartsengi power plant, while construction for another 2.4-mile semi-circle wall was underway just above the small town of Grindavik.

Vidir Reynisson, chief of civil protection and emergency management, told The Mirror that their biggest challenge was to save the power plant from the lava.

“We have plans for the electricity but still there is a lot of challenge around the hot water,” he said.

“If we were to put electric heaters in all the homes in the area we would drain the power system just for that.”

The Icelandic Met Office (IMO) on Monday updated its hazard assessment map for the area of Grindavik and Svartsengi based on satellite images.

The danger zone compared to the previous maps has been expanded to include three broad categories.

A very high danger zone measuring about 2-3km across is marked in purple, while the area around it in red denotes high risk and yellow is moderate.

The highest risk zone in the centre of the 15km-long rift is marked with a dashed red line.

As an imminent eruption looms thousands of Iceland residents await their fate as their town could be wiped out within days.

Thousands of earthquakes rocked the southwestern peninsula of Reykjanes on Saturday 11 November leading semi-molten rock to ravage below the surface as the tremors caused a 15km long dyke to form, cracking the community in two as the ground was pushed upwards.

The whole population waits in limbo as they fear the fate of their close-knit community, many have already lost their homes whilst others do not know if their residencies still stand as earthquakes have continued to strike.

The earth is at its most restless in Iceland right now. The Reykjanes peninsula, southwest of Reykjavik, is seething with seismic activity sparking hundreds of small earthquakes.

The town of Grindavík, just 10 miles south of Keflavik International Airport, has been evacuated as a precaution.

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Authorities in Iceland said they could get as little as “30 minutes notice” before the anticipated volcanic eruption near the small fishing town of Grindavik in the southwest of the country.

“The challenge that we have is that we will not see any strong evidence that the magma is coming up, we will see some small earthquakes and we can see how they will probably form in one place rather than another,” Vídir Reynisson, the head of the civil protection and emergency management agency, told Fox News.

“We will maybe get a 30-minute notice before the eruption starts. That is what we are working with.”

“All the big signs are already there, so we are looking for the small signs, the signs that say that even though we are monitoring very closely, it could be 30 minutes or less from now on until the eruption starts, but that could go on for days or weeks,” he added.

About 700 earthquakes were detected from Sunday midnight to Monday evening in the region of the magma intrusion, with the largest being of 2.7 magnitude, the Icelandic Met Office (IMO) said.

It said there has been a significant crustal uplift in the vicinity of the Svartsengi power plant, located just 4km from the fishing town of Grindavik, which was evacuated amid fears of a volcanic eruption.

“The clear sign of crustal uplift in Svartsengi region does not change the likelihood of an eruption from the magma intrusion,” the Met Office said.

“This is assessed, amongst other things, on the fact that the Earth’s crust over the magma intrusion is much weaker than the crust over the uplift region close to Svartsengi.

“As long as there is not significant seismicity in the Svartsengi region, there is not a high likelihood of an eruption at that location.”

Residents of a fishing town in south-western Iceland have left their homes after fears of a volcanic eruption caused civil defence authorities to declare a state of emergency in the region.

Police decided to evacuate Grindavik after recent seismic activity in the area moved south towards the town and monitoring indicated that a corridor of magma, or semi-molten rock, now extends under the community, Iceland’s meteorological office said.

The town of 3,400 is on the Reykjanes Peninsula, about 30 miles south-west of the capital, Reykjavik.

Three eruptions have taken place on the peninsula of Reykjanes near the Fagradalsfjall volcano in the last three years: in March 2021, August 2022 and July 2023.

However, previous eruptions did not cause damage, having occurred in remote valleys.

As Iceland waits in trepidation for the looming volcanic eruption, we take a look at some of the biggest volcanic eruptions in the last decade:

A volcano close to erupting in Iceland could explode like a “can of fizzy drink,” an expert has said.

Iceland’s Met Office has said magmatic gas has been detected at a borehole in Svartsengi, signalling an imminent eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano over the coming days, with the town of Grindavik most at risk.

The small fishing town has already been evacuated following thousands of mini earthquakes across the Reykjanes peninsula, southwest Iceland, over the past week.

Experts have revealed the likely eruption site of a volcano in Iceland, as authorities warn evacuees they may not return home for months.

Iceland has seen more than 1,700 earthquakes in the last 24 hours, according to the country’s Met Office, with most of the activity north of Hagafell.

The forecaster said magmatic gas has been detected at a borehole in Svartsengi, signalling an imminent eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano over the coming days.