'It was like a lion coming' Iceland town living in fear of magma blast

Sólný Pálsdóttir tries S in vain to emulate the sound that emerged from under her home before she fled on Friday night. "It was like a big animal coming, it was like a lion - and of course we saw the earth moving," says the teacher and photographer.

- Miranda Bryant

Pálsdóttir had been planning to cook a quiet dinner for her son and heavily pregnant daughter-in-law. But when the 53-year-old heard that sound, she knew it was time to leave. All 3,800 residents of the Icelandic town of Grindavík would be evacuated that night. "I had a bad feeling," says Pálsdóttir. "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."

So conditioned were her family and neighbours to life in the shadow of the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system, which has erupted three times in the last three years after lying dormant for eight centuries, that although the ground outside was moving and bookcases shaking, nobody rushed.

But the cause of the latest disruption was different. It started on 25 October with a "seismic swarm" centred on Sundhnúk, a fissure two to three miles under Grindavík. Where exactly the magma will erupt is unknown, but at the moment it looks most likely that it will make its path along an opening in the town, according to Marc Reichow, a geologist at the University of Leicester.

Quite when that will happen, though, nobody knows.