The next eruption may take several minutes.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office updated its risk assessment yesterday, but the risk of eruptions and lava flows is currently high within Grindavik and northeast of the town over the next two weeks.

“We just need to step up our preparations and step up our monitoring, and now we’ve started adding guards and other things like that. We had a consultation meeting today with various business partners and we’re reviewing the situation so that everyone is ready to review their plans.”

Warning time in minutes

Geophysicist Páll Einarsson noted yesterday that eruption warnings in the region are getting shorter with each eruption. Vidil said that was a problem, but the warning time was probably only a few minutes.

“Our plan now is to be able to start evacuations, activate alarms and send information to people in danger areas in a much shorter time than before,” Vidill said.

Accommodation: 30 to 60 houses

Around 250 to 300 people work in the town every day. The Grindavik Council intends to start large-scale works after the shopping weekend to repair the town’s roads and pipes, which will increase the town’s population. The project will cost hundreds of millions of Icelandic kronor.

When asked if it was responsible and wise to keep people in town when there was a possibility of an eruption within town limits, Vidill said it was safe during the day.

“It turns out that the evacuation was very fast during the day. We are more concerned about those who stayed there. There are about 30 to 60 houses available for accommodation. We are more concerned about that.”

But will this limit access further?

“Not like now, no.”