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Spotted UK

Local News Reports

Linda Pizzuti flees ‘fountains of lava’ after volcano erupts at 3am while she’s on holiday

BySpotted UK

Jan 15, 2024

The shaken wife of Liverpool owner John W Henry has revealed an ordeal that led to her being evacuated from a hotel in Iceland after a volcano erupted.

Linda Pizzuti has posted of the natural disaster on Instagram after being made to flee her accommodation with her young son following "an intense series of earthquakes" led to what was described as "fountains of lava" that reached as high as 160 feet in the Scandinavian country over the weekend.

Mrs Pizzuti was in Iceland with her son Xander to see the Northern Lights when she was woken up in the middle of the night and told they would need to fly out of the region before the eruption, which eventually took place later that morning in Grindavik.

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The Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted for the second time in less than a month on Sunday, hours after the authorities in the fishing town had ordered the residents and guests to leave and Mrs Pizzuti, who is the wife of Fenway Sports Group chief Henry, captured the eruptions on her social media accounts from the plane that carried them home.

And in a shocking post on Instagram in the early hours of Monday morning, the Boston Globe CEO explained how the events unfolded after she had escaped to safety.

She wrote: "I woke up at around 3:45am from the bed shaking in my hotel room. I thought it may be a low-scale earthquake, but the tremors kept coming at about the same intensity, so I wasn't sure. I called down to the hotel desk and there wasn't an answer….

"I got my son up and we started to get dressed when an emergency alarm then went off and we were told we have to evacuate. We quickly grabbed our bags and followed instructions. Officials were organised and careful, everyone in the area was accounted for and safely evacuated in time.

"We experienced an intense series of around 200 earthquakes – [the] largest measuring 3.5 magnitude (according to officials). We went to an airport to catch a flight out and it got worse. A 3200-foot long volcanic fissure opened the earth at around 8am and this is the video I took from the plane taking off just after 9am. Fountains of lava have reached 160 feet high."

An eruption rocked Grindavik back in mid-December after weeks of earthquakes, but the 3,800 inhabitants of the town had already started to evacuate as a precaution. More than 100 people had returned in recent weeks, only to be made to leave once more over the weekend.

"The first fissure is growing, this afternoon a second fissure opened," Mrs Pizzuti continued. "Reaching the village where a few houses in the evacuated village of Grindavik have caught fire. We are so impressed with how well Iceland manages its beautiful and wild land.

"Xander, who loves science and geology, was understandably nervous to be suddenly woken up and evacuated but he became fascinated once he knew that everyone was safe. Our thoughts are with Iceland, hoping that there is no major infrastructure damage, everyone remains safe and that the people of Grindavik are able to return home soon."

In a televised address on Sunday night, Iceland President Gudni Johannesson says the entire nation will "stand together" with those impacted by the eruptions.

"We don't yet know how this eruption will unfold, but we must still take those actions that are within our power," said President Johannesson. "We continue to hope for as good an outcome as possible, in the face of these tremendous forces of nature. We will carry on with our responsibilities and we will continue to stand together."