Hikers scramble as new fissure opens up at Icelandic volcano
Steam and lava spurted yesterday from a new fissure at an Icelandic volcano that began erupting last month, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of hikers who had come to see the spectacle.
The new fissure, first spotted by a sightseeing helicopter, was about 500m-long and about a kilometre from the original eruption site in the Geldinga Valley.
The Icelandic Department of Emergency Management announced an immediate evacuation of the area. The Icelandic Meteorological Office said the new volcanic activity wasn’t expected to affect traffic at nearby Keflavik Airport.
The long-dormant volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwest Iceland flared to life on March 20 after tens of thousands of earthquakes were recorded in the area in the past three weeks. It was the area’s first volcanic eruption in nearly 800 years.
In 2010, ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano shut down much international air travel for several days.