A closer view of the initial damage. This could very well be the beginning of the end for Grindavik.
It noteworthy to mention that the town has been evacuated and the people are not in harms way, but this was likely someones home. My heart breaks for you folk.
A close up view frown Professor Shawn Willsey's livestream showing just how close the southern fissure is to town. This was taken a few hours ago via ariel drone. The vent opened in real time while the drone was flying and observing the northern rift.
A few hours later, a structure in northern Grindavik closest to the southern fissure appears to have caught on fire.
If there is any good news to be found, the eruption appears to have lost a bit of its initial thunder.
An updated map of the fissure. Additionally, a new vent has opened in town. This is not good
A map of land elevation for the Svartsengi region during the campaign of this particular magma intrusion event.
A map plotting the 569 earthquakes (and still counting over the last 24 hours). These are mostly centered around the magma intrusion.
If you are looking at camera 4 (yellow), the camera is situated atop porbjorn looking west and a bit south. The red lines are an approximation of the rift. The building near center frame becoming surrounded by lava is their greenhouse. Town is at the right.
Edit: My line is drawn incorrectly. It is a bit more west on the other side of Hagafell.
At 7:57am, the fissure opened. Whereas last time the fissure opened up far to the north and east of Grindavik, they were not so lucky this time. The fissure has now spread much more south in the Hagafell region. It seemed to me as though it erupted at the southern end of the fissure that erupted in December. At the time of this post (11:00am), magma is only a few hundred feet from the greenhouse and maybe a mile from Grindavik.
A considerable portion of the rift spread under the protective berm they created over the last few weeks. While the berm was effective (Think sandbags stacked up to stop flood waters, but with dirt and stone), It could only ever stop a certain amount of liquid flow. This spreading of the fissure effectively circumvented it's protection for areas of the fissure inside the berm. The best case scenario now is that the southern end of the fissure ceases and cools before it can eject enough matter to overwhelm the town, which is now downhill.
Send hope that Grindavik and it's populace are spared. This is close to a worst case scenario.
30ish years ago I was living in a Polish Hill, Pennsylvania USA (a section of the greater Pittsburgh area). The apartment I was renting was an old divided 3-story house. It was a chilly October worknight. My roommate was at work, I was at home reading a book on the couch, and the roommates cat was sleeping on a large recliner. Life was very good for me then. It might have been one of the best times in my life in fact. Everything was pretty normal until around 8:30pm.
I took a break from reading to go clean my dishes from dinner. While I was washing them, I suddenly became very confused, weak and extremely sad for seemingly no real reason. I turned around to steady myself by leaning against a table, and I'm looking around for any clue as to what the hell just happened to me.
I then heard a large growl. It was the roommates cat. He's awakened from his slumber, and is in pure offensive attack mode. He's standing on two legs, fur puffed out, hissing, spitting and claws showing. He's staring and leaping at the ceiling in a hallway off the kitchen trying like hell to get at something, raking at the walls trying to get to it.
By this time, I lacked the energy to even stand upright and had dropped to a knee with tears streaming out of my eyes for no real reason. The cat continued it's assault against something that I couldn't see, taking his fight into my roommates bedroom. Eventually, I did regain my strength, and I used it to get the fugg out of the house. It was the 3rd floor apartment, and I damn near killed myself getting down those steps in the dark.
I called a friend that lived a couple blocks over and I must have sounded like an idiot, but I essentially begged him to let me come over for a bit, which he permitted. When I got to his place, I was a total wreck and shaking like a bowl of jello. I felt bad because I think I interrupted sexy time with his SO, but not bad enough to leave. I really needed to be near someone at that point.
I recounted the story to them as best I could, and they acted as though they believed me, but frankly I didn't even care if they did. I stayed there for a few hours until I really had to leave. Both my friend and I started work pretty early. I was a mechanical designer and he worked security at the Allegheny County courthouse.
I got back home and all was quiet and seemingly normal. The cat was again sleeping on his recliner (what a life). I apologized for abandoning him, finished my dishes and went to bed, though I did not get very good rest that night.
I had been around unearthly energies before in my life, but this was one was extremely negative. I never felt comfortable in that apartment again due to that event, though in retro, nothing else would ever happen to me there again. The lease was up in two months, and I did not renew it. I instead moved.
I had some friends help me move, one of them being my friend who provided me shelter that night. He used a few of his lunch breaks to search the street address, and to look up any old microfilmed documents the county had archived. He found a police report for a homicide at that address a few years prior. It recounted the last events of an apparent gay man, who had found only anguish and persecution in his life. He first tried committing suicide in the kitchen (about 3 foot away from where I was standing when everything went wonky) by blowing out the pilot light and putting his head in the gas oven. That apparently was not sufficient, so he completed his task by hanging himself in what was my bathroom.
Take it for what you will. believe it or not. I certainly don't care which. If it happens to you, you won't care what anyone else thinks either because you will know. I pray that it never does. It's a very disturbing event that leaves a splinter in your mind.
Thanks kind _stranger. That was a great recommendation and one I had not found yet.
CDs are still king with me. 1,957 and still counting. I feel cheated if I don't get to enjoy that romance of flipping through the liner notes while listening to the CD that first time. I rip the songs I like after a few days of listening to it. I suspect the day will come when MP3's will not be free.
DVD's too. Almost 1,400 of them as well.
I did have to let the cassette tapes go. I kept some of the rarer ones, but they weren't meant to last 40 years and would not likely survive another rewind.
I look at the most recent activity and suspect that either a new fissure has opened in the town proper or the southern fissure has lengthened. There exists a mini cluster of larger earthquakes in this area. The best case scenario is that this is a new structure on fire. All three scenarios are rotten-a-f. It is getting hard to tell due to gasses, smoke and darkness.
That is most likely a RUV news helicopter in the foreground. It's footage may be available shorty. You can also read their english blog here. Drones are once again banned 4km from town.