The lava has reached the edge of the town.<p>A man was lost in a crack in the town a few days ago, falling into the crack, then into a hole leading to a larger chamber underneath. The chamber had water in it experiencing tidal flow. His body was not recovered. If magma erupts into such cracks it could cause steam explosions (phreatic or phreatomagmatic eruptions).
It's crazy to think that just one week before all of this started me and my girlfriend were hiking to Gunnuhver hot springs and stayed at pretty much the exact spot over the night where the eruption happened next to Grindavik, mostly because there's nearly absolute darkness ... except for the bright light above Grindavik that looks like an island of light in the middle of nowhere, it was really magical.<p>Iceland is such a beautiful place.. although I was angry and sad for most part of the trip seeing how tourism changed Iceland over the last 20 years. As recently as 2014 we had to ask the locals in mostly sign language and paper maps how to navigate the Westfjords; there's 5G now in even the last corner of the island.. guess I'll need to resort to Svalbard and Greenland to go truly off-grid in the future :-)
Even if the lava doesn't destroy too many buildings, can the town survive the dual shocks of the ground under all the rest of the buildings being unstable, and uncertainty about whether any further investment in the town will be obliterated by a future eruption? The long term looks bleak to me.
Donate to Icelandic Red Cross here: <a href="https://www.raudikrossinn.is/styrkja/stakur-styrkur/" rel="nofollow">https://www.raudikrossinn.is/styrkja/stakur-styrkur/</a>
Update from this morning: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsDBgjgEtnU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsDBgjgEtnU</a>