An expert has warned an impending volcanic eruption will be like "shaking up a can of fizzy drink".
The Fagradalsfjall volcano has been on the brink of a massive explosion for more than a week now, with Iceland's Met Office now warning a magmatic gas detected at a borehole in Svartsengi could signal the eruption is coming any day now. The town of Grindavik, expected to bear the brunt of the eruption when it happens, has been evacuated with some 4,000 people removed from their homes.
Now Margaret Hartley, an Earth sciences senior lecturer, has predicted what an eruption could look like. She told Live Science: "The process is a bit like shaking up a can of fizzy drink – as soon as a crack opens in the top of the can, the drink escapes with lots of frothing.
READ MORE: Village's 'final chapter' as Iceland volcano's 'worst-case scenario' laid bare
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"I do think an eruption will take place, but the big question is when that might happen," she added.
Volcanologist Lovisa Mjoll Gudmundsdottir previously told the Mail on Sunday an eruption could occur with just a few minutes' notice. "In these situations, things can change very quickly," she told the publication.
"If there is an eruption, it could occur even before we can predict it."
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Already the area around the volcano has seen horror destruction as thousands of earthquakes continue to decimate the area. One YouTuber who has seen the destruction warned the series of natural disasters could mark the "final chapter" for Grindavik, near the capital of Reykjavík.
In a video titled "Irreparable Damage Already and Sadness – Grindavik Awaits the Final Chapter," the Just Icelandic channel said the town may be "beyond repair". "Since Sunday (November 12) we have seen the fishing village Grindavik sink into the ground in front of us," a narrator said over photos of the wrecked village. "It's like a slow motion disaster movie we can't run away from.
"Even [if] our luck would turn from now, and there would be no eruption at all, the town might be damaged beyond repair, or at least a big part of it." The channel said evacuees from the town were given just two to three hours to leave their homes as the river of magma started flowing under the ground beneath their streets.
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