The Icelandic Met Office has raised the level of warning from green to yellow because of the recent earthquakes around volcano Katla. Green means that the volcano is an active one but shows no signs of a impending eruption, Yellow means that the activity is greater than normal and possibility of eruption is uncertain. They go on to say that there is yet no way to predict a volcanic eruption, but the activity is strong. Police in the south district are combing the surrounding area to make sure no one is there that doesn’t belong there like tourists or travellers. Katla has ben stirring for the past few weeks, but the tremors today are the biggest so far.
The Met Office issued the following warning just now: “An intense seismic swarm is on-going since yesterday morning (29 September) at Katla volcano. An intense pulse, the largest one if compared with the previous activity, started today at 12:02 (30 September) with several earthquakes around magnitude 3 or larger. No seismic tremor has been detected until now in the caldera. Due to the unusually high level of unrest at the Katla volcano we rise the aviation colour code from green to yellow.”
They go on to inform about the activity in the past week: “Around 530 earthquakes were detected last week by the national seismic network of the Icelandic Meteorological Office. An earthquake swarm that started last week in Hellisheiði continued this week. The largest quake of the sequence which was also the largest quake of the week was a magnitude 3,0 on 19 September at hrs 18:41. In total, around 230 earthquakes were measured in the swarm. 12 earthquakes over magnitude 2,0 occurred this week, four in Mýrdalsjökull, one in Grimsfjall, three in Bárðarbunga and three in Hellisheiði. An earthquake of magnitude 2,9 was detected close to Hveragerði on september 25th. It was felt in the town of Hveragerði”