Iceland is famend for its magnificent glaciers, erupting volcanoes, and scorching scorching springs in frigid climate. The title “the land of ice and fireplace” is suitable given its contrasted environment. Unsettling occasions this week have alerted Southwest Iceland, notably the areas close to its capital Reykjavik, elevating worries throughout the globe.
Roughly 4,700 earthquakes have been registered beneath Mount Fagradalsfjall on the Reykjanes Peninsula since Tuesday afternoon (July 4), in keeping with the Icelandic Meteorological Workplace (IMO).
Moreover, since Thursday evening (July 6) over six earthquakes with a magnitude better than 3.5 have been registered within the Reykjanes Peninsula, with essentially the most highly effective quakes in southwest Iceland producing remoted rock falls. Total, it’s anticipated that the present earthquake swarm will proceed, albeit with barely much less severity, when it comes to each the amount and measurement of tremors.
Southwest of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, the Fagradalsfjall volcano is erupting with lava flows and smoke.
Aviation business in danger as a result of volcanic eruptions
Though seismic exercise has considerably diminished within the space across the dike, a continuation of this exercise is probably going. At this explicit time, it’s essential to emphasise this. Though the Iceland Met Workplace has issued warnings a couple of possible volcanic eruption, it’s nonetheless potential that the eruption received’t happen on account of the declining seismic exercise.
Aviation alerts have been upgraded from “inexperienced” to “orange” in response to elevated seismic exercise, indicating {that a} large volcanic eruption is suspected however doesn’t current a big menace to air visitors. The aviation sector assesses the hazards of volcanic eruptions utilizing a color-coded methodology.
The icelandic Met Workplace has warned individuals towards venturing near rock cliffs or steep slopes within the neighborhood round Keilir and Fagradalsfjall Volcanoes and the Kleifarvatn Lake as a result of fears over an impending volcanic eruption “inside days or even weeks.”
Over the previous 20 years, Iceland has skilled its share of volcanic exercise, with Grmsvötn experiencing essentially the most important eruptions, which considerably disrupted air journey within the northwestern parts of Europe in Could 2011. However earlier eruptions weren’t as sort, particularly to air transport. When the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted in 2010, many flights have been canceled, leaving tens of millions of individuals stranded.
If a volcano does erupt in Iceland, it’d trigger the aviation business to expertise comparable ranges of interruption as a result of giant variety of earthquakes which have been reported on this latest seismic exercise.
Because it stand now
In keeping with information from RadarBox, airplanes have been touchdown at Keflavik Worldwide Airport, the nation’s major airport, just about with out incident as of this writing. However it will likely be attention-grabbing to see over the approaching days whether or not this volcano does erupt in Iceland and what kind of havoc it is going to carry to Europe if it does.
