Tourists have been urged to stay away from an erupting volcano which is spewing potentially poisonous gas into the air a few short miles from the country's main airport.
Authorities in Iceland on Tuesday warned tourists and other spectators to stay away from the spewing lava and noxious gases from a fissure in the country's southwest.
The eruption began Monday afternoon after thousands of earthquakes in the area, meteorological authorities said. This one comes 11 months after its last eruption officially ended.
The eruption is in an uninhabited valley near the Litli-Hrutur mountain, some 30 kilometres (19 miles) southwest of the capital, Reykjavik.
The area, known broadly as Fagradalsfjall volcano, erupted in 2021 and 2022 without causing damage or disruptions to flights, despite being near Keflavik Airport, Iceland's international air traffic hub. The airport remained open on Tuesday.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office said the eruption was initially more explosive than the previous two. Aerial footage showed streams of orange molten lava and clouds of gases spewing from a snaking fissure about 900 meters long.
Residents in the nearby Reykjanes have been told to stay in their homes and encouraged to sleep with their windows closed due to the risk of deadly toxic gas emerging from the volcano.
Dr Robin Andrews, who works in experimental volcanology, predicted that it was unlikely the eruption would lead to any disruptive ash clouds. In 2010 the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano shut European airspace down for days.
"This fissure has opened a good few miles from the nearest infrastructure. It’s likely to be another safely contained mid-size eruption, one that is extremely unlikely to become explosive, or ash ridden," Dr Andrews wrote on Twitter.
"As the eruption is so new, little is known with any certainty: it’s not clear how voluminous it will be, how fast the lava will flow, if any additional fissures around the starting cluster will appear, nor if the eruption style will be pretty similar to the past two."
The UK Foreign Office updated its advice for people heading to Iceland on Tuesday, urging travellers to regularly check for updates.
"Iceland is volcanically and seismically active and weather conditions can be severe and change rapidly," the FCDO website reads.
"Monitor the Icelandic Met Office website, the Safe Travel website, and the Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration website for the latest updates and follow the advice of the local authorities.
"In case of an emergency, the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management in Iceland will send out text messages to anyone located in the vicinity. For more information see Natural disasters."
"Gas pollution is high around the eruption and dangerous," the Met Office said. "Travelers are advised not to enter the area until responders have had a chance to evaluate conditions."
By Tuesday morning, the fissure and the volume of the eruption had shrunk, scientists said.
"This has become a small eruption, which is very good news," University of Iceland geophysics professor Magnus Tumi Guomundsson told national broadcaster RUV.
He said the eruption could "certainly last a long time, but luckily we're not looking at a continuation of what we saw in the first few hours."
A 2021 eruption in the same area produced spectacular lava flows for several months. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to see the sight.
Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, averages an eruption every four to five years.
