Iceland volcano erupts for third time
GRINDAVIK, Iceland: A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted for the third time since December on Thursday, sending jets of lava into the sky and triggering the evacuation of the Blue Lagoon thermal spa, one of the island nation’s biggest tourist attractions.
The eruption began at about 6 a.m. (local time) along a 3-kilometer (nearly 2-mile) fissure northeast of Mount Sundhnukur, the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said. It was taking place about 4 km (2.5 mi) northeast of Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 people that was evacuated before a previous eruption on December 18.
The IMO said lava was flowing to the west and there was no immediate threat to Grindavik or to a major power plant in the area. Civil defense officials said no one was believed to be in the town at the time of the eruption, Icelandic national broadcaster RUV reported.
“They weren’t meant to be, and we don’t know about any,” Víðir Reynisson, the head of Iceland’s Civil Defense, told RUV.
The Blue Lagoon was closed when the eruption began and all the guests were safely evacuated, the broadcaster said.
The IMO warned earlier this week of a possible eruption after monitoring a buildup of subsurface magma for the past three weeks. The amount of magma or semi-molten rock that had accumulated was similar to that released during an eruption in January.
Hundreds of small earthquakes had been measured in the area since last Friday, capped by a burst of intense seismic activity about a halfhour before the latest eruption began.
Dramatic video from Iceland’s coast guard shows fountains of lava soaring more than 50 meters (165 feet) into the dark sky, and a plume of vapor rising about 3 km (1.5 mi) above the volcano.
This is the third eruption in less than two months of a volcanic system on the Reykjanes Peninsula, home to Iceland’s Keflavik Airport. There was no disruption reported to the airport on Thursday.
Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, averages an eruption every four to five years. The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and led to widespread airspace closures over Europe.
Grindavik, about 50 km (30 mi) southwest of the capital Reykjavik, was evacuated last November when the Svartsengi volcanic system awakened after almost 800 years with a series of earthquakes that opened large cracks in the earth between the town and Sylingarfell, a small mountain to the north.
The volcano eventually erupted on December 18, sending lava flowing away from Grindavik. A second eruption that began on January 14 sent lava toward the town. Defensive walls that had been bolstered since the first eruption stopped some of the flow, but it still consumed several buildings.