A magnitude 5.2 earthquake occurred in southern Iceland. (Getty Images)
The Icelandic Meteorological Agency said that a magnitude 5.2 earthquake occurred near the Hekla volcano in southern Iceland on Thursday. The quake was also felt in the capital, Reykjavik, about 110 kilometers away.
The earthquake occurred at 1:21 pm (1321 GMT) and its epicenter was in the Vatnafjoll mountain range, which is located in a rift zone near the larger Hekla volcano, which is part of the same volcanic system.
“Earthquakes are generally felt in southern Iceland and the capital region,” the Icelandic Meteorological Agency said in a statement.
The police stated that there were no reports of damage or injuries in sparsely populated areas.
Geophysicist Pall Einarsson told public television station RUV that the earthquake and its multiple aftershocks were not caused by magma movement, nor were they a sign of an imminent volcano eruption.
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Hekla volcano is 1,491 meters above sea level and is one of Iceland’s most active volcanoes. The most recent eruption dates back to 2000.
Kristin Jonsdottir, the International Maritime Organization’s Earthquake Disaster Coordinator, added on Twitter that Thursday’s earthquake was “most likely caused by plate movement rather than volcanic deformation”.
At the end of February, a magnitude 5.7 earthquake occurred in southwest Iceland, just a few weeks before a volcano near Fagradal Mountain began to erupt on March 19, 2021.
According to volcanologists, six months after the lava erupted, the magma stopped flowing in mid-September, but it is too early to tell whether the volcanic activity has officially ended.
Iceland is the largest and most active volcanic area in Europe.
This huge North Atlantic island borders the Arctic Circle and straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a seafloor fissure that separates the tectonic plates of Europe, Asia and North America.
