Iceland’s south western Reykjanes Peninsula has been experiencing a huge amount of seismic activity in recent days.
438 earthquakes have occurred in the region in the last 48 hours alone. The biggest quakes happened at 21.33 last night and at 13.35 today. Last night’s quake measured 4.9 on the Richter scale, and today’s 4.5.
Both were centred near the town of Grindavik and were clearly felt by residents in the capital, Reykjavik. The famous Blue Lagoon spa is also very near the epicentre and guests felt the full force of today’s quake, but were not asked to leave the complex. The Blue Lagoon was already closed by the time last night’s tremor took place.
No damage or injury has been reported anywhere and the quakes were much smaller than last June’s 6.3 tremor, which also killed no one.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=http:%2F%2Fhraun.vedur.is%2Fja%2Fgoogle%2Fkmls%2Feqlistmaps.kml&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=65.127638,-18.588867&spn=4.188185,13.183594&z=6&source=embed
More direct source about earthquakes in Iceland
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/reykjanespeninsula/
I was there in Is. when the 6.3 occured, I hope they are watching close, b/c of the new volcano growing by Blue Lagoon. God Bless Is. and all my relatives and all of Iceland. Everytime earthquakes occur arond the ring of fire, Iceland begins to rumble! Holidays are on the way & I hope Iceland takes all of these seriously as well as the all those in Iceland. They should keep Ble lagoon closed untill it calms down, I am in the US, but all my family is their. Please Icelandics be on guard especially Grindavik. Why is this not on the news like CNN or reuters reporting it? Bless to all my relative Vikings!!!! XOXOX
There was a 6.3 in June last year, earthquakes are don’t scare any one here in Iceland, the biggest ones are around 7, we had a 6.5 and 6.6 in 2000
i new island came to the surface November 15, 1963
in a volcano eruption, we named it Surtsey
http://images.google.is/imgres?imgurl=http://www.archipelago.nu/SKARGARD/ENGELSKA/ICELAND/surtsey.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.archipelago.nu/SKARGARD/ENGELSKA/ICELAND/surtsey.htm&usg=__P4nT89BxtKvyERoZSTo4xfwHNP0=&h=273&w=605&sz=14&hl=is&start=10&um=1&tbnid=4lUNlwctiaVgSM:&tbnh=61&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsurtsey%26hl%3Dis%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1
that is something worth talking about,
buildings here are designed and built to survive earthquakes and they do, as we have seen time after time.
there is no volcano anywhere near the Blue lagoon
and nothing to worry about there, my guess would be that the next eruption would be in Vatnajökull glacier or maybe Hekla.
Can you advise someone to buy a house built by polish workers for the period of the last 5 years?
AXEL “buildings here are designed and built to survive earthquakes and they do”
LAST NOTICEABLE EARTHQUAKE PUT DOWN AND DAMAGED MANY HOUSES IN THE SOUTH OF ICELAND. THE LOOSES WHERE COUNTED IN MANY MILLIONS…
DON´T YOU WATCH THE NEWS??
ok SIR NOISE, now it is earthquakes that Iceland can’t do right. This really has crossed into the totally pathetic. Seriously, no more comments from me about your posts, it is pointless.
And to the adults out there, Iceland has some of the toughest building codes on earth because of the quake potential. Even though granny lost some of her precious dishes, nobody died and schools didn’t fall on top of children’s heads. Some countries don’t prepare as well for what they know will happen someday.
Are your racist, Balkanson? ;-)
PS. I wouldn’t btw. And if a building structure most probably survives a quake – most probably the rest will break soon without any quakes at all :-( But this is not a fault of polish workers actually – it is the result of eroding work culture – due to “rat race” in construction during last few years here.
But otherwise Axel is correct – Icelandic buildings en mass are most safe in the world in terms of earthquakes (and wind).
Hi, As long as the ‘Helgi Lean’ statue continues to stand in Akureyri and the signpost on Grimsey points in the right direction Island will be ok to explore. Regards, Nigel.