Earthquakes have caused large cracks to appear in roads in the area around Grindavik in Iceland.
Photo: road administration of iceland/ReutersResidents of an Icelandic fishing town under threat from a volcanic eruption were allowed back to their homes for five minutes to collect pets and valuables as tremors continued to rock a peninsula jutting out into the North Atlantic, reviving memories of the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano and the disruption it caused the global aviation industry.
Grindavik’s 3,400 people were evacuated on Saturday after seismologists detected a 9-mile-long underground corridor of semi-molten rock moving beneath the town toward the nearby Fagradaslfjall volcano, around 30 miles southwest of the capital, Reykjavik.
By midday Monday, 30,000 earthquakes had been recorded over the past three weeks and the aviation alert was raised to orange to indicate a heightened risk of a volcanic eruption.
Persons:
seismologists
Organizations:
Reuters Residents
Locations:
Grindavik, Iceland, iceland, Icelandic, Reykjavik