Iceland holds its breath: volcano eruption will be 'like shaking a soda can'

Iceland holds its breath. The eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano is imminent, and the question is no longer if there will be lava expulsion, but when it will happen, something that can happen in hours or a few days.

Regarding the type of eruption, it is also expected to be violent. Margaret Hartley, senior lecturer in Earth sciences at the University of Manchester (United Kingdom), and in statements reported by Live Science, has made a very graphic simile.

“The process is a bit like shaking a can of soft drink: as soon as a crack opens in the top of the can, the drink escapes with a lot of foam,” said the expert.

Predicting that the eruption is certain, Hartley added: “I think an eruption will happen, but the big question is when it might happen,” he said.

But another worrying thing is that we will not know in advance when it will happen.. Lovisa Mjoll Gudmundsdottir, who works in the volcano's monitoring room, told the Daily Mail that the eruption could occur with only a few minutes' notice.

“In these situations, things can change very quickly,” said the 29-year-old risk specialist, who earned her master's degree in volcanology at the University of Bristol. “If there is an eruption, it could happen even before we can predict it,” he added.

Geophysicist Benedikt Ofeigsson said there were clear signs that the huge magma corridor under the Reykjanes Peninsula was expanding, with the Icelandic Meteorological Office detecting more than 1,000 earthquakes on Friday.

The area is bracing for what could be an eruption of the volcano or one of the fissures that have opened nearby, with huge chasms destroying homes and roads in the deserted town of Grindavik.

Evacuated residents returned to the city every day to collect their belongings, but had to flee on Tuesday after the Met Office said its meters had detected sulfur dioxide.

Then on Thursday, magmatic gas was detected in a well in Svartsengi, 3.7 kilometers north of Grindavik, which experts say is a sign that an eruption is imminent.

An eruption of molten rock from the magma tunnel beneath Reykjanes is likely in the coming days, following weeks of seismic activity there. This is the most likely scenario, the head of the meteorological service's volcano department, Kristin Jonsdottir, told radio station RUV on Friday.

Volcanologist Haraldur Sigurðsson has said that if an eruption were to occur, he expects it could fall into the sea and says Grindavik needs to be “reorganized” to mitigate the disk of widespread destruction in the future.. In other words, the entire city will probably have to be relocated.