A volcano erupted on Wednesday on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula in the south-west of the country, the ninth eruption in region since the end of 2023.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said the eruption had begun just before 4am local time (05:00 BST), and live video feeds showed lava spewing from a fissure in the ground.
The IMO later said the main fissure was about 1.5 miles (2.4km) long, and that a second fissure of about 500 metres long had opened up nearby.
Residents were advised to say indoors because high levels of toxic gas in the air.
The broadcaster RUV reported that a nearby fishing village, Grindavík, had been evacuated, as had the Blue Lagoon spa, a famous tourist spot.
Police commissioner Margrét Kristín Pálsdóttir told RUV the evacuation of about 100 people had gone smoothly.
She also said police had prevented some tourists from entering the area. “Of course, we understand that this is a fascinating event, especially for tourists who are not as accustomed to it as we are,” she said.
Tourists watch the eruption from a road near Keflavík airport. Photograph: Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images
Benedikt Ófeigsson, a geophysicist with the IMO, told RUV that the eruption didn’t seem as big as earlier ones and was not near any infrastructure.
The last eruption in the area was in April, and a risk assessment published on Tuesday didn’t expect another eruption until the autumn.
When the first eruption took place in late 2023, most of Grindavík’s 4,000 residents were evacuated. Almost all of the homes in the village have since been sold to the state, and most of the residents have left.
Volcanoes on the Reykjanes peninsula had not erupted for eight centuries when a period of heightened seismic activity began in March 2021.
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Volcanologists have said in recent years that activity in the region had entered a new era.
RUV said the latest eruption was not expected to affect international flights.
An eruption in another part of Iceland in 2010 caused worldwide travel chaos when an ash cloud forced the closure of airspace.
Iceland has 33 active volcanic systems, more than any other European country. It is located on the mid-atlantic ridge, a fault line in the ocean floor between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.
