GRINDAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Vignir Kristinsson smiles as two women, the only customers all morning, enter his gift shop filled with handmade things of oak. After perusing decorations ranging from animals to kitchen cutting boards, one woman bought a small black-stained tree.

After decades of making cabinets for a living, Kristinsson, 64, said his daughter persuaded him to turn passion for woodworking into a business. Five years ago he and his wife opened the shop in Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 people about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik. Business was good.

Then the volcanic eruptions began.

Since December 2023, nine eruptions near Grindavik have forced residents to repeatedly evacuate, with authorities closing the town for periods ranging from a

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