Víðir Reynisson, chief police officer at the National Commissioner of Police’s Civil Protection Department, has told the public to avoid the Reykjanes peninsula where seismic activity is the greatest.
Víðir stated this at a meeting with Kristín Jónsdóttir, group leader of nature conservation monitoring at the Icelandic Meteorological Office and Freysteinn Sigmundsson, geophysicist and president of the University of Iceland’s earth sciences department.
Volcanic eruption on its way.
The chief said that it is still not known when or where the eruption will occur. If an eruption does occur, people wandering in the area may find themselves in an unexpected situation they may not be able to get out of.
The road to Keilir and other areas in the area was closed yesterday after a disturbance pulse was measured at 14:20 at Litla Hrút by Keilir.
The activity is still persistent but it did subside slightly last night.
“There were five such large earthquakes last night so the course of events continues.”
In a conversation with Vísir, Víðir said, “It simply came to our notice then. There were five such large earthquakes last night so the course of events continues. We are still in a similar situation as yesterday morning before this turmoil came.”
Víðir went on to say that people were coming to the closed road at Keilir and wanted to venture closer to where the seismic activity is strongest but the police were there to stop people.
“As soon as we see how this develops and if it starts to erupt, we will issue instructions on where it will be convenient to get to if people want it. But while there is so much uncertainty in this, we just ask people to stay away, ” says the chief of police.
Víðir added that we simply have to wait and see how this situation develops.
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