Iceland preparing for possible volcano eruption after thousands of earthquakes in past week

Officials in Iceland are preparing for the potential of an eruption from one of the country’s numerous volcanoes after a spate of recent earthquakes.

CNN reported Thursday that local officials have warned residents of the country’s southwestern region, including the capital of Reykjavik, that an eruption is possible after thousands of temblors in the past several days.

“Of course it worries people. For this region, this is actually fairly unusual, not because of the type of earthquakes or their intensity, but for their duration. It’s been going for more than a week now,” said a volcanology professor at the University of Iceland, Þorvaldur Þórðarson, in an interview with the network. “We are battling with the ‘why’ at the moment. Why is this happening? It is very likely that we have an intrusion of magma into the crust there. It has definitely moved closer to the surface, but we are trying to figure out if it’s moving even closer to it.”

Þórðarson’s team released images of potential lava flows Wednesday that did not predict any towns in the country would be impacted by potential eruptions. However, a major roadway connecting the country’s largest airport to Reykjavik may be less fortunate. Officials do not expect air travel to be impacted by a potential eruption, according to Bloomberg.

“Based on the current model, no major town is in harm’s way,” Ármann Höskuldsson, another volcanologist, told CNN.

Thousands of quakes have struck the southwestern Reykjanes area over the past week, including more than 2,600 in the past 48 hours, the country’s meteorological office said Thursday on its website. Several dozen have been magnitude 3 or higher. The Hill has reached out for a count of registered quakes in the past month.

One resident of the capital told CNN that the quakes have been nearly constant.

“It is very unusual to feel the Earth shake 24 hours a day for a whole week. It makes you feel very small and powerless against nature,” said Auður Alfa Ólafsdóttir.