Icelandic police declared a state of emergency on Saturday as lava spewed from a new volcanic fissure on the Reykjanes Peninsula, the fourth eruption to hit the area since December.
A “volcanic eruption has started between Stori-Skogfell and Hagafell on the Reykjanes Peninsula,” said a statement from the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO). Live video images showed glowing lava and billowing smoke.
Iceland’s Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management announced it had sent a helicopter to narrow down the exact location of the new fissure. The authority also said the police had declared a state of emergency due to the eruption.
According to the IMO, it occurred close to the same location as a previous eruption on February 8. Lava appeared to flow south towards the dykes built to protect the fishing village Grindavik, it said.
Just after 22:00 GMT, “the southern lava front was just 200 metres [656 feet] from the barriers on the eastern side of Grindavik and moving at a rate of about one km per hour”, it added.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Blue Lagoon thermal spa, one of Iceland’s top tourist attractions, when the eruption began, national broadcaster RUV said.
No flight disruptions were reported at nearby Keflavik, Iceland’s main airport.
The eruption site is a few kilometres northeast of Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 people about 50km (30 miles) southwest of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, that was evacuated before the initial eruption in December. A few residents who had returned to their homes were evacuated again on Saturday.
Grindavik was evacuated in November when the Svartsengi volcanic system awakened after almost 800 years with a series of earthquakes that opened large cracks in the ground north of the town.