AFTER FOUR WEEKS OF INCESSANT seismic activity disrupting their sleep, a certain loopiness began to take hold of the longsuffering residents of Grindavík. By 10 November 2023, many people had left this small fishing town on the south-west coast of Iceland. Plenty more, though, went about their Friday night plans as usual. Oblivious to the scale of the volcanic time-bomb ticking under their home, Brynhildur Blomsterberg, 58, and her partner, Ólafur Sigurpálsson, 75, were preparing to host their joint birthday party and were expecting 20 guests.
“We had hundreds of lamb chops to get ready,” says Blomsterberg, a nurse. “We were frying and the town was just shaking.” When, at about midday on Friday, she called Sigurpálsson to suggest they move the celebrations out of Grindavík, the former sailor and fish exporter said no, reassuring her it would die down. There was an element of business-as-usual: Grindavík had experienced regular earthquakes since 2020, and three volcanic eruptions in as many years. Sure enough, 12 guests made it to their house, just as parts of the town started cracking open, including the main street. Some of the fissures were 20 metres deep.
Before long, the contents of the garage were falling to the ground, and guests were literally tumbling through the door. The cars parked in the driveway were moving and sliding, their alarms going off constantly. As the 14 people gathered in the living room, they heard what sounded like cracks echoing from below. “The frequency was low – we could almost feel it, like the sound of a helicopter,” says Blomsterberg. Objects were coming off the walls. The fridge, meanwhile, was rattling “like a jackhammer”; Blomsterberg says they must have pushed it back into place 10 times. The mood at
