Icelandic police said Monday that residents of a fishing village evacuated due to multiple volcanic eruptions were allowed to return, adding that they believed few would stay overnight due to the state of the town.

The roughly 4,000 residents of Grindavik on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwest Iceland had to be evacuated on November 11 after hundreds of earthquakes damaged buildings and opened up huge cracks in roads, shrouding the village’s future in doubt.

The quakes were followed by a volcanic fissure on December 18 that spared the village, but a second on January 14 opened right on the town’s edge, sending orange lava flowing into the streets and reducing three homes to ashes.

On February 8 a third eruption near the village started, sending an estimated 15 million cubic metres of lava flowing out in the first seven hours.

Lava from the third eruption crossed over a key water pipe, cutting of hot water — which is also used to heat houses — in the southern part of the peninsula, known as Sudurnes, home to some 28,000 inhabitants.

On Monday, the chief of police of Sudurnes, Ulfar Ludviksson, decided that residents and those working in the village were once again free to return to the town and could stay as long as they wanted.