Skip to main content

'Seismic swarm' in Iceland prompts new Foreign Office warning

Europe
Harry Kemble
31 October 2023

The Foreign Office has advised Britons visiting Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula to follow local authorities’ travel advice due to “increased above normal levels” of volcanic activity. 

Grindavik.jpg

The IMO said the 'vast majority' of the quakes reported last Friday were under magnitude 3 (Credit: Pexels)

Although currently there is no eruption, the FCDO said Icelandic authorities were monitoring the area closely. 


Iceland’s meteorological office (IMO) reported last Friday (27 October) that the south-western Reykjanes peninsula was experiencing a “seismic swarm” of small earthquakes.


The “vast majority” of the quakes were under magnitude 3, although two quakes were over 4. 


IMO service and research division head Matthew Roberts told Reuters: “These earthquakes are a warning sign, a part of a longer-term story that we know we’re entering a build-up phase to the next volcanic eruption.”