Experts believe the volcano could be ready to erupt because, while there were thousands of tremors happening in the week before last, since midnight on Monday, only 165 have been recorded.
I completely agree. I've noticed in my life time how far we've come in terms of our understanding of volcanology. There is still much to learn and hopefully we can get much better at predicting these kind of events.
It seems like from what I've seen they have evacuated the town and should be relatively safe if it does erupt. That being said it's a tragedy if it does erupt and they lose the town. They have already had pretty major infrastructure damage and would take a ton to restore the town if this passes. Lots of people have already lost their homes and I hope the best for them all.
The biggest thing I took away from it was that even if there ends up being no eruption, the area would not be safe to return to. I'm guessing that's due to there being the long tail risk of a delayed eruption. An extremely difficult situation to be in when it's your home and community.
Yeah but that's a large percentage of Iceland if you consider the long term possibility of eruption in human terms. This town has already experienced massive earthquakes that have destroyed homes and infrastructure. It would take a huge amount of effort and money to fix an area that's unstable.
It is a good thing that they are already gone. Look at that map - the town centre is maybe a kilometer from the area of the most likely eruption position, and also downhill from there.
If you want to buy a fully furnished house on the icelandic coast for cheap, now is the time! ;-)