Selected residents of an Iceland town evacuated due to fears of an eruption will be allowed to briefly return to their homes to collect valuables today – in a plan which could change at the last minute.

A notice issued by the local police chief said that permits had been given for the owners of 120 properties in Grindavik to rescue their valuables. They will be transported to and from a collection point by emergency personnel.

“First of all, the safety of the responders, most of whom are volunteers, must be considered. Their safety must always be ensured. There is still a high probability of an eruption,” said the police chief.

The area near the Svartsengi power plant has entered a “new eruption phase”, an Icelandic volcanologist has suggested.

The land near the power plant is swelling as a chamber some 4.5 kilometres below the surface fills with magma at a rate of around 50 cubic metres per second, according to Professor Thorvaldur Thordarson – in a repeat of the events which saw huge fissures appear in the ground earlier this month.

“I think the likelihood of an eruption in the northern part of the Sundhnúkar crater row or in Illahraun lava increasing every day. I think the likelihood of an eruption there is increasing because of the land rise in that area,” Professor Thordarson told Iceland Monitor.

He added: “We’re in a new and a changed situation and we’ve entered a new the eruption phase, and so it’s very constructive for us to think about what kind of preventive measures we can take. What can we do before an eruption occurs that will help us reduce its impact on society and infrastructure?”

The land near the Svartsengi power plant is now rising even faster than it did prior to the subterranean events which led to huge cracks appearing in the ground there earlier this month, a volcanologist has said.

Land swelling is common prior to volcanic eruptions, and Professor Thorvaldur Thordarson said the ground is now rising some 5.5 times faster than it did 10 days ago, with the flow of magma into the storage chamber – which sits 4.5km below the surface – now around 10 times faster, at around 50 cubic metres per second.

“The land is rising much faster now. This happens simultaneously because the magma is creating space and thus raising the surface of the earth,” Professor Thordarson told Iceland Monitor.

If this speed continues, the volcanologist believes the Svartsengi power plant will have reached its previous position in five to 15 days.

“What happens then, it’s hard to tell,” he said. “We might get an eruption, we might have a re-run of the activitites that happened on 10 November or just something completely new.”

Residents from a small Icelandic town under threat from a volcanic eruption have described their ‘apocalyptic’ existence as they fear for their future.

Grindavik resident Andrea Ævarsdóttir, 46, told The Independent: “Everything just seems so unreal, I feel like I’m in a dystopian movie. I’m just waiting to wake up from this nightmare.”

The town of Grindavík, just 10 miles south of Keflavik International Airport, has been evacuated as a precaution. Yet flights are continuing to arrive and depart as normal.

A spokesperson for British Airways told The Independent: “Our flights are operating as planned and we continue to monitor the situation closely.

“We will be in touch with customers directly should the situation change.”

Icelandic authorities have ordered construction of defences around the Svartsengi power plant to protect it from lava flow in event of a volcanic eruption near the area.

The “extensive” construction began on 14 November to establish a “basic defence line” as soon as possible to protect the plant from the first onslaught of possible lava.

Big earth-moving equipment and powerful bulldozers were pressed into action, state broadcaster RUV reported.

The land around the Svartsengi power plant, located about 4km from the town of Grindavik, is rising much faster than it did before the earthquakes, volcanologist Þorvald Þórðarson said.

“The flow of magma into this storage chamber, which is at a depth of 4.5km is 8 to 10 times higher than what people were talking about before 10 November,” he told Iceland Monitor.

“Then it was about 5 to 7 cubic metres per second, but now it is about 50 cubic metres per second,” he added.

“The country is rising much faster now. This happens simultaneously because the magma is creating space and thus raising the surface of the earth.”