Volcano at Iceland’s main airport erupts again

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (TBEN) – A volcano in southwestern Iceland began erupting on Wednesday, the country’s meteorological authorities said – just eight months after the latest eruption officially ended.

The Icelandic Meteorological Bureau urged people not to go near Fagradalsfjall volcano, which is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of the capital Reykjavik.

The eruption in an uninhabited valley is not far from Keflavik Airport, Iceland’s international air traffic hub. The airport remained open and no flights were disrupted.

A live video feed from the site showed magma spewing from a narrow fissure about 100 to 200 meters (109 to 218 yards) long over a lava field from last year’s eruption, the first on the Reykjanes Peninsula in nearly 800 years.

Scientists had expected an eruption somewhere on the peninsula after a series of earthquakes over the past week indicated volcanic activity near the crust.

Volcanologist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson told The The Bharat Express News that the eruption seemed small.

“But we don’t know where in the process things are,” he said as he boarded a helicopter for a first look.

The 2021 eruption in the same area produced spectacular lava flows for several months. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to see the spectacular spectacle.

Iceland, located above a volcanic hotspot in the North Atlantic, has an eruption every four to five years on average.

The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which sent clouds of ash and dust into the atmosphere, interrupting air travel between Europe and North America for days over concerns the ash could damage jet engines. More than 100,000 flights were grounded, with millions of passengers stranded.

Shares of Iceland’s flagship airline, Icelandair, rose 6% when news of the eruption broke on Wednesday. Investors and residents alike were shocked at the possibility of a much more disruptive eruption in a populated part of the peninsula.