Until just after 10pm on Monday, when the earth opened up and spat out an otherworldly 4km-long wall of lava, Sígrún Ísdal had been planning to spend Christmas at home in Grindavík with her family. Like many residents of the fishing town on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula, who were all evacuated on 10 November, she had been preparing to move back after more than a month spent in the limbo of temporary accommodation.
Ísdal, who works at Grindavík sports centre, had even been in the town briefly on Monday evening to pick up a few possessions, as residents have recently been allowed to do. “There was just good weather and I didn’t see anything,” she said.
