Summary of the day
A volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula in south-west Iceland has erupted after weeks of intense earthquake activity.
The eruption began at about 10.17pm local time on Monday, after a series of small earthquakes at about 9pm, the Icelandic met office said.
After the eruption, the Icelandic prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, said: “Now we see the earth opening up”.
Guðni Th Jóhannesson, the president of Iceland, said: “We now wait to see what the forces of nature have in store.”
The Icelandic government said the volcanic eruption “does not present a threat to life”.
In an overnight update, the Icelandic Met Office said “the eruptive fissure is about 4km long” and that the “distance from the southern end to the edge of Grindavík is almost 3km”.
Grindavík residents, all 3,800 of whom were evacuated from their homes on 10 November, were only yesterday told by police that they may be permitted to return to their homes full-time by Christmas.
By late morning, lava from the eruption appeared to be flowing away from the town, offering hope that homes that have survived the weeks of earthquakes in Grindavík might be spared.
Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson, Iceland’s minister of infrastructure, said “we seem to have been quite lucky with the location and development” of the eruption.
Matthew Watson, professor of volcanoes and climate at the University of Bristol, said that “it is unlikely, but not impossible that there may be some impact on air travel”.
Updated
Summary
The Icelandic met office initially said the magma was moving to the south-west and that the eruption might continue in the direction of Grindavík. Then, the crack in the Earth’s surface was about 2.1 miles long and had grown rapidly.
Between 100 and 200 cubic metres (3,530 and 7,060 cubic ft) of lava was emerging per second, several times more than in previous eruptions in the area.
But by late morning, lava from the eruption appeared to be flowing away from the town, offering hope that homes that have survived the weeks of earthquakes in Grindavík might be spared.
The southernmost point of the fissure – which had since grown to 4km (2.5 miles) long – was still 3km away from Grindavík, the met office said.
“The eruption is taking place north of the watershed, so lava does not flow towards Grindavík,” the geologist Bjorn Oddson told the public broadcaster RUV.
Local police said they had raised their alert level as a result of the eruption and the country’s civil defence advised the public not to approach the area while emergency personnel assessed the situation.
Read the full story here.
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