Standing on the hill overlooking the eruption web site, it is clear how perilously shut it’s to the Icelandic city of Grindavik.
A search and rescue staff going into the exclusion zone, previous the Blue Lagoon spa and in the direction of the evacuated city, can see the hearth fountains spouting molten rock and lava sweeping in the direction of folks’s houses from their vantage level.
The eruption has subsided in a single day.
It’s nothing just like the curtain of fireplace videoed by the coastguard helicopter on Sunday.
Iceland volcano newest: Lava inside city – after ‘worst-case situation’ hits
There are three hearth fountains. One was spouting lava 5 metres into the air; the opposite two have been smaller.
The lava does not appear to be shifting now, however it’s glowing red-hot in locations.
Steam and smoke rise into the chilly winter air.
But the lava has already induced appreciable harm, severing the pipes that took sizzling water from the close by energy station into the city.
It means houses don’t have any warmth. And right now of yr that makes them uninhabitable.
Engineers are assessing how the pipes is perhaps rerouted, however that may take some time.
The defensive wall that staff have been constructing over the past fortnight has prevented extra appreciable harm to the city.
It’s about three metres excessive, constructed from rock and earth. And it has diverted a lot of the lava circulate.
It’s the primary time it has ever been tried and it labored.
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The wall hasn’t been completed although, and the place it was barely decrease it was overtopped by lava.
The second fissure, which opened up a lot nearer to city, contained in the defensive wall, took everybody unexpectedly.
There was nothing to cease the lava, however happily solely three homes seem to have been consumed by the molten rock or burned by the extreme warmth.
Civil defence groups at the moment are taking inventory of the scenario.
If the eruption is tapering off already, then repairs can begin.
But whether or not the folks of Grindavik need to return to their houses when lava is looming on their doorstep is one other matter.
Source: information.sky.com”