Him again. History repeats itself, more and more frequently. Indeed, on November 21, 2024, the Icelandic volcano Sundhnjukagigar erupted again, once again causing the evacuation of the city of Grindavik. Since December 2023, this is the seventh eruption of the volcano.
A 2.5 kilometer crack
At 11:14 p.m. in Iceland (12:14 a.m. in Paris), theIcelandic Met Office (IMO), the Icelandic Meteorological Office announced that Sundhnjukagigar had erupted. Along a 2.5 kilometer long fissure, orange-red lava escaped.
If the images are impressive, the IMO clarified that “this rash is smaller than the previous one [ndr, la dernière éruption du volcan avait eu lieu en août 2024]” as reported by Le Monde according to an AFP dispatch.
You can also find the live broadcast of the volcanic eruption on the YouTube channel of the Icelandic national broadcasting service (RÚV).
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By resetting the slider, you can follow the entire eruption of the Sundhnjukagigar volcano.
Grindavik (again) evacuated
Never six without seven you could say. In December 2023, the port city located on the Reykjanes Peninsula was evacuated for the first time following the awakening of the Sundhnjukagigar volcano.
Today, do it again. Except that the evacuation affected many fewer people than less than twelve months ago. Indeed, in December 2023, the city had 4,000 inhabitants. Today, following the (very) numerous evacuations due to the increased volcanic activity in the region, Grindavik can be considered a ghost town.
“Around fifty houses were occupied in recent nights” according to civil protection in comments reported by Le Monde. The volcano therefore threatened many fewer people than previous times.
Sundhnjukagigar, a standard-bearer volcano for a new era
If the eruption of the volcano with a name easier to pronounce than to write is an incredible phenomenon. It is even more so when we know that volcanic activity in southwest Iceland has simply exploded for almost three years.
Indeed, the Reykjanes Peninsula was spared from volcanic eruptions for almost 800 years until March 2021. Just the fact that the Sundhnjukagigar volcano has erupted seven times in less than a year marks the entry of Iceland, a region with some of the most active volcanoes in Europe, in a new volcanic era.
This would therefore be synonymous with a significant increase in this type of event in the small Nordic country in the years to come.
Source: Le Monde
