Iceland volcano live: Three Grindavik homes burn but lava defences save rest of town

A British couple on holiday in Iceland said it was “alarming” to see a volcano erupting in the southwest of the country as they travelled to the airport on Sunday.

Lorraine Crawford, 67, and her 70-year-old husband John, from Essex, took a trip to Reykjavik on Thursday along with Mr Crawford’s cousin, Michael Daltrey, and his wife, Faye.

The group were in a taxi on their way to Keflavik International Airport on Sunday morning to return to the UK when Ms Crawford said they saw the erupting volcano in the distance and initially thought it was a fire.

“It’s alarming in a way – it’s quite exciting to see something like that but then you realise that this could do quite a lot of damage,” Ms Crawford, who runs a travel agency with her husband and their daughter, told the PA news agency.

“On the way (to the airport), we thought it was just a fire in the distance but (the taxi driver) said it was the actual volcano erupting.”

She added that they had heard a “really loud noise” and a “really loud rumble” from the airport, but they were not sure what had caused it.

Much of the lava flow from the volcano eruption was diverted from Grindavik due to the protective barrier dams built around the town, the Icelandic Met Office said.

Since November, defensive walls had been placed around the volcano in hopes of directing the magma away from the community.

But the walls of the barriers built north of Grindavik have been breached by the lava, which engulfed at least three houses.

“This continues to surprise us,” said Benedikt Ofeigsson, a geophysicist at the Meteorological Office.

The Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, one of Iceland’s biggest tourist attractions, extended its closure till 16 January due to the nearby volcanic eruption.

“The current eruption site is at a safe distance from Blue Lagoon,” a note on the spa’s website reads.

“All guests with bookings during this temporary closure period will be contacted.”

Services at the Blue Lagoon have been temporarily unavailable since November, when the fishing town of Grindavik was initially evacuated following intense seismic activity.

President Gudni Johannesson announced flights scheduled to fly in and out of Iceland won’t be affected due to the fresh volcanic eruption near the town of Grindavik.

“No lives are in danger, although infrastructure may be under threat,” he said on social media X, formerly known as Twitter.

“There’s no way to tell” how much destruction the fishing town might face, which would depend on the duration of the eruption, said Benedikt Ofeigsson, a geophysicist at the Meteorological Office.

The eruption began early on Sunday north of the town, which just hours before had been evacuated for the second time since November over fears that an outbreak was imminent amid a swarm of seismic activity.

Workers scrambled to rescue their machinery which was being used to build defensive walls against lava flow into Grindavik, report RUV.

Víðir Reynisson, head of Civil Defence highlighted the importance of saving the machinery to the broadcaster, saying it was needed to build other defence structures around the country.

He insisted the protection of human lives was their biggest priority and the successful mission did not endanger workers.

Sadly for Grindavik residents, the lava is flowing quickly towards town.

“We’re basically just looking at the fact that there’s lava flowing on both sides of the defensive wall. There is a volcanic fissure that has opened up inside it. Lava is flowing a few hundred meters north of the town, this is 400 to 500 meters. Lava flows towards Grindavík,” Kristín Jónsdóttir from the Icelandic Meteorological Office told RUV.

According to the meteorologist the lava will take just hours to reach the town.

It is the second volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwest Iceland in less than one month and the fifth outbreak since 2021.

Last month, an eruption started in the Svartsengi volcanic system on Dec. 18 following the complete evacuation of Grindavik’s 4,000 residents and the closing of the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, a popular tourist spot.

More than 100 Grindavik residents had returned in recent weeks before Saturday’s renewed evacuation order, according to local authorities.

Iceland‘s civil protection agency on Sunday said it had raised its alert level to “emergency”, the highest on a three-level scale, signaling an event had begun that could cause harm to people, communities, property or the environment.

Lying between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, two of the largest on the planet, Iceland is a seismic and volcanic hot spot as the two plates move in opposite directions.

A volcano has erupted in southwest Iceland , posing an immediate threat to a nearby fishing town that had been evacuated over fears of an outbreak.

Early-morning live streams from the site showed fountains of molten rock spewing from fissures in the ground, the bright orange lava flow glowing against the dark sky.

The eruption began north of the town of Grindavik, which on Saturday was evacuated for a second time over fears that an outbreak was imminent amid a swarm of seismic activity, authorities said.

Iceland in recent weeks sought to build barriers of earth and rock to prevent lava from reaching Grindavik, but the latest eruption appeared to have penetrated the defences.

“According to the first images from the Coast Guard’s surveillance flight, a crack has opened on both sides of the defences that have begun to be built north of Grindavik,” the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said in a statement.

“Lava is now flowing towards Grindavik. Based on measurements from the Coast Guard’s helicopter, the perimeter is now about 450 metres (1,500 feet) from the northernmost houses in the town,” it added.