Iceland Volcano LIVE: Entire town may have to be moved as expert warns port could be filled with lava and destroyed

Residents of Grindavik, the Icelandic fishing town that has been evacuated amid volcanic and seismic activity in the area, have described how difficult it is not knowing if they will be able to return home.

'We're just waiting for an eruption. We just feel like we're in a movie that we just want to end,' said Ólöf Helga Pálsdóttir, a local whose family were told to leave the town.

'You're optimistic about getting home and then after ten minutes you start crying and missing home,' she told media outlet Visir.

After a barrage of earthquakes that herald an impending volcanic eruption, some evacuated residents of Grindavik wonder if they will ever return.

'There are going to be a lot of people who don't want to go there. My mother said 'I never want to go there again',' Eythor Reynisson, who was born and raised in Grindavik, told AFP news agency.

The fishing port of 4,000 people on Iceland's south coast was evacuated on November 11 after magma shifting under the Earth's crust caused hundreds of earthquakes - a warning of a likely volcanic eruption.

Thousands of smaller tremors have shaken the region since.

With massive crevices ripping roads apart and buildings' concrete foundations shattered, the once picturesque Grindavik now resembles a warzone.

The damage to the town hall will take months to repair.

Despite the conditions, a resilient community spirit was evident as residents this week queued to enter Grindavik to collect belongings they left in their hurried evacuation. Residents embraced each other and shared moments of laughter.

'I am really emotional. That's basically how I am feeling right now,' Johannes Johannesson told AFP news agency.

For some, living around volcanoes comes with the territory. 'We are a strong community, so I think it's possible to build it up again,' Reynisson said.

Around 1,000 earthquakes have been recorded around the site of the volcano since midnight, Iceland's RUV news outlet reports.

The strongest of these was a 3.0 magnitude quake, it said.

As Iceland braces for a massive volcanic eruption, members of the public can now listen to what the unnerving rumbling actually sounds like thanks to an app which transforms seismic frequencies into audible pitches.

Earthtunes, which has been developed by Northwestern University, turns the more familiar recording of squiggly lines scratched across a page into something that can instead be heard. The result is an 'exciting and scary' cacophony of noise as the island's Reykjanes Peninsula is hit by hundreds of earthquakes.

Click the link below to listen and read the full story:

Seismic activity around the Fagradalsfjall volcano remains consistent, Iceland's RUV news outlet reports.

It says small earthquakes are continuing to shake north of Hagafell to Sundhnúka, and that the most significant land movement ' appears to be in the magma intrusion to the north of Grindavík, near Hagafell.'

Citing Iceland's Met Office, RUV says a high probability remains of an eruption.

A magnitude 3.0 earthquake was recorded at around 7.30am today at Hagafell, it said.

Residents of Grindavík who were forced to evacuate their homes due to the threat of the volcanic eruption have described 'apocalyptic' scenes.

Many have been unable to return to the 'danger zone' to collect their belongings, and they face an uncertain future with their homes under threat.

Local resident Andrea Ævarsdóttir, whose house started shaking on Friday, told The Independent: 'Everything just seems so unreal, I feel like I'm in a dystopian movie. I'm just waiting to wake up from this nightmare.

'Some of [the earthquakes] were like a big truck had driven past your house, the bigger ones were like the same truck had hit your house,' she told the news outlet. 'Everything was shaking so bad, the floors were going up and down.'

Sólný Pálsdóttir, another resident, told The Guardian she had a bad feeling when she heard a sound emerge from beneath her home.

'I was born in Grindavík and I am used to earthquakes since I was little but this was something else. Everyone who was there knew,' she told the publication.

More residents who evacuated their homes over the eruption threat may be allowed to return to collect their belongings.

Víðir Reynisson, director of Civil Defence, told RUV it would be clearer tomorrow if people whould be allowed into the danger zone.

'There is an assessment that will be done in the morning. Hopefully it will be possible to allow a little more tomorrow. We will start looking [at it] in the morning when we receive a new risk assessment,' Reynisson told the news outlet.

Iceland's RUV is broadcasting live streams, including one overlooking the peninsula and the region near Grindavík where the volcano is expected to erupt.

The Icelandic Met Office has said the eruption could begin within days.

According to Iceland's RUV news outlet, magmatic gas has been detected at a borehole in Svartsengi - 2.3 miles north of Grindavík - which experts say is a signal that an eruption is imminent.

As Iceland continues to brace iteself for a volcanic eruption after days of increased seismic activity, a powerful earthquake has hit the Philippines.

You can read our full story here:

Between March and June 2010, a series of volcanic eruptions at Eyjafjallajökull spewed vast ash clouds into the air that caused huge disruption to air travel.

The disruptions began over a period of six days in April 2010, continued again in May, and persisted until June. The eruption was declared officially over in October that year after three months of inactivity.

The ice-capped volcano began to erupt in mid-March following several months of increased seismic activity in the area.

The first eruptions were isolated to the volcano's north-east flank, but soon spread to the centre of the volcano - a 1.8-mile crater surrounded by ice.

As the ice started to melt, glacial water flooded into the volcano where it met with bubbling magma. The rapid cooling caused the magma to shear into ash particles.

Large plumes of ash quickly spread over the volcano, moved with the jet stream, and spread over northern Europe, wreaking havoc to air travel.

Iceland declared a state of emergency and European air space was closed as a safety precaution, stranding millions of passengers.

It is estimated airlines lost £130m every day the airspace remained closed.

Volcanologist Haraldur Sigurðsson has said he believes that if there is a volcanic eruption in the coming days, it will most likely be out at sea.

However, he has played down fears of a huge eruption, saying that he believes the pressure of the magma is not high enough to come to the surface this time.

'If the corridor is active and is moving to the south - we see that there are earthquakes that reach all the way under the sea, just south of Grindavík - it would be most natural if it would slide to the side and into this system southwest of the town,' Sigurðsson told Icelandic newspaper Morgunblaðið.

In this way, a new island would be formed south of Grindavík.

On his blog, Sigurðsson even pondered what a new island should be called.

Looking at recent aerial photographs of Grindavík this week, he said he saw two fissures that run parallel just west of the town, about 200 meters apart.

He said old images taken by the US army in 1954 also show the cracks. Nevertheless, the town was built up around them.

'We see it on the aerial photographs of the American army from 1954, and there it is clear. But the district manager has not been thinking about this at the time. It was just old cracks and no reason for them to be wondering about it. It [the town] was just built on top of this,' he told the newspaper.

'That was just the mentality. But now it's a bit more of a problem.'

Iceland's south-west peninsula could see decades of instability, the Icelandic Met Office (IMO) has warned.

Earthquakes and growing fears of a huge impending eruption mark the start of a new 'eruptive cycle', the IMO's Matthew Roberts told the BBC.

Eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula began again in 2021 after an 800-year hiatus, and thousands of people have now been evacuated.

'We expect to see volcanic eruptions along the peninsula, not just repeatedly in the same location,' Dr Roberts told the British broadcaster.

Instability could last decades, he added.

His team made the shocking realisation last Friday that magma was coursing into the ground and fracturing rock over a nine-mile distance.

The expert said the magma cut through the ground beneath Grindavik 'almost like an underground freight train.' Images have since shown fissures appearing in the ground, and further damage to buildings and roads is expected.

Western parts of Grindavik have also sunk into the ground.

Good morning and welcome to MailOnline's live coverage of the impending volcanic eruption in Iceland. Here's what you need to know today: