A volcano has erupted south of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, spewing lava and smoke in a fiery display that had earlier triggered the evacuation of tourists and residents although air traffic continued as normal.
“Warning: An eruption has begun,” the Icelandic Meteorological Office said in a statement on Tuesday. “The total length of the eruptive fissure is now about 1,200 metres (3,937 feet) and continues to extend southward.”
Referred to as a land of ice and fire for its many glaciers and volcanoes, the nation has now seen 11 eruptions south of the capital since 2021 when dormant geological systems reactivated after about 800 years.
Iceland sits above a volcanic hotspot in the North Atlantic. The most disruptive incident in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which sent huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and disrupted transatlantic air travel for months.
The eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula on Tuesday so far has not directly affected Reykjavik and has not caused significant dispersal of ash into the stratosphere, avoiding air traffic disruptions.
Later Tuesday, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck Iceland, the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) said. The quake was at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles), GFZ added.
The volcanic eruption penetrated protective barriers close to the fishing town of Grindavik, forcing an evacuation of its residents, who had returned after previous eruptions, although most houses have stood empty for more than a year.
“There is lava coming within the barrier at the moment, but it’s a very limited eruption so far,” said Rikke Pedersen, head of the Nordic Volcanological Center.