A large seismic crack has split in two the center of Grindavík, a population of 3,700 inhabitants located forty kilometers from Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland.
The fissure, produced by an intrusion of magma, runs through the municipality from south-west to north-east and has opened right in front of the church, below the sports center and next to the swimming pool. The images received from this town, which was evacuated on Friday of last week, show deep landslides in the road, a new unevenness between the eastern and western neighborhoods and structural damage in some buildings.
This scenario, the worst that could be imagined since a volcano erupted in the region in 2021, has raised a traumatic question for the residents of Grindavík, who wonder if they will be able to return home. The future of this community is, right now, an absolute uncertainty, waiting to know at what point a volcanic eruption will begin that experts say is very likely. But beyond what happens in the next few days, the Grindavík seismic episode is already Iceland’s worst natural disaster since the Heimaey eruption in 1973.
The last time I entered Grindavík was two days before the evacuation. I went for lunch at the Bryggjan cafe, a restaurant renowned for its lobster soup and fried fish with potatoes. It had snowed, but until that moment the most dire forecasts pointed to a possible downpour that would affect the houses in the north of the urban plot, the ones closest to the Þorbjörn mountain. Grindavík is a quiet, thrifty town, where leisure time is spent in the geothermal pool, walking in the natural environment and going to see the matches of the football and basketball teams, with the colors yellow and blue as their flag . Forty-eight hours after my last visit, an extraordinary earthquake swarm began, with almost constant magnitude 4 earthquakes. It was then that many inhabitants of Grindavík decided to leave of their own free will, and finally, at midnight, the authorities ordered the official evacuation. On Tuesday I was about to re-enter it accompanied by the police, but when we were about five kilometers from the crack the rescue teams gave a new evacuation order due to high levels of sulfur dioxide.
The residents of the fishing town live in permanent confusion and have no desire to talk to journalists, because – understandably – they don’t quite know what to say either. The natural disaster is not over, and it can affect the town for months or years, so they can’t even think about rebuilding their lives, because everything is an unknown. Everyone I contact refuses to speak to the press, except for a 13-year-old teenager who – upon hearing my request to his parents – tells them with conviction that he wants to talk to me. I drive to Keflavík, where some relatives have taken them in for a few days, and there I am greeted by Ásgeir Ármannsson, a tall, blond, blue-eyed boy. I ask him why he decided to come and talk to me and he tells me that he wants people to know what is happening in Grindavík. “On the day of the evacuation I had gone to school and that afternoon I was at church when my father called me and told me to run home, that we were leaving the village. At 18:01 on Friday we were leaving Grindavík on the northern road, but we found cracks in the road and saw sparks from some cars; we thought it was fire. We turned around and drove as fast as we could along the west road”, recalls Ásgeir.
The father, whose name is Ármann Harðarson and who works as an electrician, follows the conversation from a distance and, despite initial reluctance, ends up participating. You see him physically tired, tired, and he rubs his face with his hands when his thoughts overtake him. He explains to me that his house is in the red zone, the one with the highest risk, and that, since the day of the evacuation, he has been able to enter his home twice, for five minutes each, accompanied by members of the rescue teams. “Five minutes are nothing. You’re cramming your whole life into five minutes. I took clothes, toys for the children, albums, the computers with all the photographs, two paintings, a family portrait… Some of the things I took I don’t need; you’re there, you have five minutes, it’s stressful and you don’t have time to think calmly”, the man narrates, as he sighs with each sentence.
In the room where we speak, a plasma TV shows Grindavík live. The family is packing again because the father’s union has offered them a summer house in the capital region where they can live until December 20. Then you’ll see. “Most of the time I think I’ll go back to Grindavík, but then, when I’m in bed, I start to wonder if we’ll ever be able to go home; it’s hard”, reflects Ásgeir, sitting on the sofa, in front of the screen. For now, geologists say the eruption is the most likely scenario, but no one knows if it will take place in Grindavík, on its outskirts, or even under the sea.
