Iceland Earthquakes & Þráinsskjaldarhraun Imminent Volcano Eruption - A Week In my Life In Reykjavik

00:03 - we are going to the pool when there have been numerous earthquakes go!! scientists have been saying that this area, the Reykjanes Peninsula has been getting itself ready for a volcanic eruption and of course this is nature so it might not happen wow, it’s incredibly sunny. So this morning I am taking Mia to a physio appointment Oh, this is super bright, this is not like Reykjavik is it?! Just to check, oh, whoa!! I think that’s an earthquake… I don’t know if it’s safer to go inside a building but the earthquakes are never that bad in Iceland but we’ve had a few recently, this is… oh no I hope they’re okay actually i’m sure everything is fine little baby Mia!! I know this is a really strange thing to do, like there’s an earthquake right now.

01:17 - I know that they’re not that big but it feels so weird and like no one’s here so i may as well talk to you guys i just checked and the last one was 5. 4 on the richter so they’re not big but you definitely feel it and you can hear things moving around and rattling in your house.

01:37 - I’ve just picked up the books that fell on the picture frames off the shelf and things and everyone’s kind of gone mad on facebook because life at the moment is not boring is it that’s for sure whoa that was a big one oh my goodness, okay that’s a bit scary now I learned this from japan and the best thing to do is stand in the doorway so that’s what i’m gonna do just hope that everyone else is okay this is just so surreal isn’t it so because mia has had her eye problems and balance issues and all of those kind of things today we are going to the physio to kind of just have a test on how she’s doing how she’s progressing and get a bit of support and guidance on what we can be doing this is so shaky this is so weird to support her um in her growth and development and all of that kind of thing so it’s not the first time we’ve done it we’re getting quite used to all of this i’m seeing reports coming off on my phone 5.

6 was that one I love that there’s people just sitting out on benches chatting if people are just so relaxed in iceland i think i’ve adopted this mentality a little bit i’m just chatting to you in the middle of earthquakes what is this 2021 the craziness continues eh oh can you like you can hear things you can see the plant moving it’s just like it’s like a mass of lorry is driving right by the house or something ok, I phoned my Mum which was probably a stupid idea to worry someone who’s in a totally different country but i then she told me to phoning work which i phoned on and he was busy at work but i did phone me back a couple of seconds later so it was fine oh i just feel really nervous and it reminds me of japan a lot and I just i’m on my own here and i know mia is safe she’s in a one-story building it’s a solid concrete building it’ll be reinforced it’s designed for these kind of situations and if he said if the staff are nervous they’ll just take them outside for as long as they need to and just play outside in an open space where it’s safe or they’ll call us and we can come and get them he said to me to either stay in the flat near the doorway away from windows so i’ve changed from the kitchen i didn’t even think about that um and just phone somebody or vlog he said if i start feeling really bad then just leave the apartment and either get in the car or just go for a walk in an open space which is probably the best idea i’ve just kept an eye and i outside nobody is going outside so i think it’s best just to stay indoors for now it might seem like a really weird thing to pick up the camera and vlog but honestly like this is distracting me right now I feel like I can hear them coming before they hit which is making me more anxious than actually feeling the the quakes and the aftershocks little update of course there were no shocks no tremors for about 20 minutes so i decided i would jump in the shower and of course there was one whilst i was in there um and it was quite a sharp one so anywhere was messaging to see if i was okay and i was in the shower i have mia now because i don’t speak icelandic and i don’t have a clue what the word for this appointment is i just had to bring all of the papers with me and then take a picture of them all and send them to Ingimar so now i’m sat outside the office and i’ve got i think the right one so this is the prescription for this appointment so we don’t have to pay for it you’re too eager, not yet, Mia was that good fun? yeah did you play with the baltis? (balls) yeah yeah it is honestly hours later i’ve got mia in the back again and we have come out it’s a beautiful sunny spring-like day it’s four degrees there’s still snow on the mountains but it’s lovely so i think we’re gonna have a nice swim outside so we’ve come to the pool in Álftanes and we’re going to meet a couple a friend of ours here mia’s friend my friend who’s the mummy and have a nice little swim outside I don’t know if this is like a really stupid idea when there have been no 30 tremors and like Leikskoli said that we can expect another big one but i don’t know i asked Ingimar and he was like yep go for it so we are going to the pool when there have been numerous earthquakes but it’ll distract me and it’ll hopefully relax me after quite a stressful morning okay ready steady go yeah okay that was a pretty interesting night huh I definitely woke up to three of those earthquakes we have had earthquakes for the last two days 3 since Wednesday hundreds of little earthquakes happening all the time it is quite a normal thing for iceland but we don’t typically feel them and these are again pretty big we had 5.

7 on wednesday we’ve had over 5 000 quakes on the corner of the country that we’re in and we just had…

07:15 - Reykjanesskagi yeah i was six hitting four during the night and unfortunately mia was in bed with us so yeah she came through wake up to each and every one of them it’s always less pleasant and we just had like not five minutes ago we probably had someone on that closest in number five red painting red painting whoa you just dropped it so now we are finding all activities around the house to entertain this little monster yeah and right now i’ve brought out all of the felt letters not felt the foam letters that we’ve got and we’re going through them what letter is this K K well done Mia she’s got pretty much all of these correct so far oh wrong way round this way yay Mia what letter is this M M, and whose name has this letter? M M for? Mia what letter is this? D a D, yeah D for? Mia Daddy it doesn’t work for your, your name all the time what about this one? Mia B what letter is it? Mia B B yeah Mia B 4 Yeah, what number is this one? 7 yeah and what number is this one? 9 yeah and what number is this one? 6 Yeah!! Daddy M Daddy doesn’t get M, Mia gets M and Mummy gets M, but daddy doesn’t get M but Daddy doesn’t get M MmmDaddy what does this say Mia? Daddy M says M i a Mia what does this say? D a d Dad rascal okay she’s one of those children who rebels in the back of the class now when she’s bored because the lesson is too easy this is where all our fridge magnets have gone so today mia and i are sitting here ready to do church we survived the night i think i only woke up to one earthquake maybe i’m just getting more used to them now George and Mia, yeah do you want to do painting? we do it after church yeah okay we have to do church and then we do coffee and chat with people and then we’ll do painting yeah good job we’ll also get you dressed at some point so yes, there weren’t too many earthquakes through the night I haven’t even checked what, what the weather website is saying but things have kind of i think we’ve just got more used to it now so Ingimar has gone off to the spa today um and i am here with mia we’re gonna do church and then we’re gonna go outside because it snowed overnight there was a huge hail storm and there’s loads of snow so that’s gonna be good fun we’re now having a tea party on mia’s floor with raisins and juice yummy yummy okay that’s enough Mummy gets lots Mummy, blue oh, Mummy gets the blue one, Mia has the yellow with lots of raisins.

10:45 - Thank you Mummy, blue Thank you and we’ve got to pick them up with a spoon yeah bon appetit hmmm Mummy help you? no okay cheers yeah, it’s good? thumbs up look, shoes, Nori You’re facetiming your cousins okay so it’s the next day now it is monday Ingimar’s at work, Mia is at school everyone is kind of back to their normal routine but I have to say it is really hard to focus when there are just earthquakes every kind of every 20 minutes at the moment so here in Reykjavik we, we, well in Iceland I suppose, we don’t really experience that many earthquakes and at the moment we have had something crazy like over 1 700 earthquakes in the last week and yeah that’s quite mad i think that’s you know that might be quite a normal number i, i actually have no idea but the fact is that some of these earthquakes are pretty big they are measuring around five on the richter scale so 4.

2 to kind of 5. 7 um and you can really feel them and you can also hear them coming which is what is most unnerving i think and you might even hear one whilst i’m filming and you’ll hear it’s quite funny it’s really just the booze in our kitchen that rattles the most i’ve kind of checked over the flat and we’ve taken down most of the things that could fall other than like pictures like this i suppose we could take them all down but at the moment things are okay and we’re just hoping fingers crossed that it starts to ease off as the pressure and the activity the energy in the earth releases with each one of these earthquakes the unfortunate thing is that they are predicting an eruption and the volcano that they’re predicting would erupt is actually quite near the city of Reykjavik where we are and i’m going to show you what the vedur.

is which is like the weather website here so this is how many earthquakes there have been this is the area that they’re in and right up here is where Reykjavik is so they’re pretty damn close to us there was i think two earthquakes that i woke up to last night and one of them i’m not sure if it’s the one that was around one o’clock or whatever because i was semi-delirious but Mia was in our bed and it when it hit i felt like it was quite big and it was going on for a little bit longer than normal so i just reached over and grabbed Ingimar and Mia, and gave them a huge hug in hindsight i mean that’s really lovely that that’s what i chose to do but that wouldn’t help us i actually think this must be quite difficult because when an earthquake hits you’re supposed to get in a secure place like a door frame under a table or whatever but if you’re sleeping in bed it’s not the first thing that comes to your attention so hopefully we won’t have to do anything like that so we have now escaped to the local park and i can tell you this is not the most appropriate place to be standing when an earthquake might hit i feel a little bit like we’ve got motion sickness we’re on a roundabout yeah White white stone what color is this stone? black stone yeah, what color is this stone? what colour is… this stone? black stone yeah, what color is this stone? Red stone we’re now in a little cafe where Mia’s gonna serve me can i have a gray stone please oh yeah can i have this one you nice doing business with you thank you mommy you’re welcome so you come again bless bless want me to go down the slide are we ready for this it’s quite steep okay if i’m going you’re coming with me yeah mia’s coming ready it’s freezing cold ready steady whoa okay we’re going super slow go just come on to the lava center’s website because they’ve got a really good map of all of the activity at the moment in iceland so this is just like the whole of iceland you can see down the south here is where the lava center is and i’m going to zoom in a bit to show you where reykjavik is and uh where all of the activity is so this is the ricky dennis i’m probably saying that wrong peninsula and this is where all of the activity is for those of you who’ve visited Iceland you will have flown into here where Keflavik airport is you might have also visited Grindavik where there are some geysers and some amazing landscape and also, unfortunately, the blue lagoon is here now 20 kilometres from kind of the epicentre here is the city the capital city of Reykjavik in hindsight probably not the best place to have a capital city so close to where there is a lot of activity and has been a lot of activity over hundreds of years because where lava has flowed before it can flow again and pretty much all of this area is just lava on top of lava on top of lever a lot of iceland is lava and unfortunately i’ll zoom in a bit further to show you where we live is pretty much this area here so really not that far and that’s why we can feel a lot of this activity a lot of these earthquakes and my friend sent me a message and it said over 1 500 measurable earthquakes have occurred since midnight the largest was magnitude 4.

9 at 1 30. 18 quakes larger than magnitude 3 have occurred so far today and more than 11 500 earthquakes have been measured since Wednesday 200 of those were over magnitude 3. basically scientists have been saying that this area the Reykjanes Peninsula has been showing massive signs of activity for for years now and it’s basically getting itself ready for a volcanic eruption so for those of you asking mia is not she just doesn’t even seem faced by this really um she’s probably more using it as an excuse to get more cuddles and sleep in mommy and daddy’s bed which is fine with us i’d prefer for her to be with us there are quite a number of earthquakes through the night and they’re enough to wake us up so they are pretty big in the last couple of days i’ve just noted down here we’ve had 5.

7 4. 6 4. 7 there around we went on high alert when we had over 4 000 earthquakes we’ve now had beyond that um and they are predicting that in the next couple of days weeks we could have one that is 6. 5 or higher and so we don’t need to panic nobody needs to go out and stock up on things or whatever it should be fine but it’s just a case of knowing that that’s what’s on its way and that this is something that has happened in the past these things work on a cycle seemingly we are due for this every 50 years and it has been 50 years so these things can kind of be predicted there was an earthquake a couple of about what was it four months ago now that was 5.

6 and the local experts thought that that would be enough of a release of energy from the earth to help settle the peninsula but obviously it wasn’t and of course this is nature so it might not happen maybe nothing is going to come of this maybe it will we just don’t know and so just having your kind of wits about you looking into what you can do keeping your kids calm and safe creating jump areas like this this is great earthquake proof activity for mia it is mad to think that 80% of iceland lives in reykjavik or this area we are so close to the epicentre of this and we’re surrounded by lava so obviously you know that always did kind of surprise me that the city is built on so many lava fields but i guess there’s not a huge amount of land that is habitable in iceland but this does worry me there’s no real evacuation plan that i’m aware of and hopefully we won’t need one but yeah there we go that’s our week it continues there are still shaking happening right now i’m going to sign off now go and get mia please feel free to follow us on instagram to get more of a kind of daily update on how things are going and to message with us if you want to if you are here in reykjavik and feeling nervous anxious whatever please feel free to comment down below and kind of help each other out in the community it’s thursday and for those of you following the icelandic news you will have seen that yesterday last night we got a warning that the volcano could erupt within the next few hours now that was at three o’clock and it’s more than 12 hours later now nothing has happened um but that was very exciting i’m just i’m at prideland right now which is in the city center it’s like two minutes from our apartment and i’m gonna show you where the volcano is just to give you a bit of a perspective on how close it is to everyone so this is pride land and i’m just gonna zoom around and hopefully you can see that’s it right there and you can see the edge of the city you.