A state of emergency has been declared in Iceland after a volcanic eruption in the country’s south.
This regional warning marks the fourth state of emergency for the Nordic country since December, with lava already reaching Grindavik. The town has been evacuated.
Livestreams showed fountains of molten rock soaring from fissures in the ground after authorities had warned for weeks that an eruption was imminent on the Reykjanes Peninsula just south of the capital Reykjavik.
"Warning: An eruption began in Reykjanes," the Icelandic Meteorological Office said on its website, while Reykjavik's Keflavik Airport's website showed it remained open both for departures and arrivals.
It follows on from a dramatic eruption in February which fired lava 260ft into the air. In this incident at least three homes were set on fire.
Iceland's Meteorological Office said on Sunday that streams of lava are still flowing but the rate has now begun to slow down.
"The eruption was quite energetic, and there was a lot of material coming out, more than in the previous eruption. So lava was flowing quite fast," Halldor Geirsson, associate professor at the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland, said.
Authorities had warned for weeks that an eruption was imminent on the Reykjanes peninsula just south of Iceland's capital Reykjavik, as magma had been accumulating underground.
Livestream video early on Sunday showed lava flowing just a few hundred metres from Grindavik. The fishing town of some 4,000 residents that was evacuated during an eruption in November and once more for the last eruption in February.
"The rate of the lava flow is getting lower and lower," said Mr Geirsson. "Most of the flow is going east of the town towards the sea, so it looks like the barriers are doing the job they were designed for."
Authorities were also monitoring lava flowing towards the peninsula's Svartsengi geothermal power plant, The Icelandic Meteorological Office said.
Volcanic outbreaks in the Reykjanes peninsula are so-called fissure eruptions, which do not usually cause large explosions or significant dispersal of ash into the stratosphere.
