REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) – Steam and lava erupted Monday from a new crack in an Icelandic volcano that began erupting last month, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of hikers who had come to see the show.
The new fissure, first seen by a tourist helicopter, was about 500 meters long and about a kilometer from the original eruption site in the Geldinga Valley.
The Icelandic Department of Emergency Management has announced an immediate evacuation of the area. He said there was no imminent danger to life due to the site’s distance from popular hiking trails.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office said no new volcanic activity was expected to affect traffic at nearby Keflavik airport.
The long-dormant volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland came to life on March 20 after tens of thousands of earthquakes were recorded in the last three weeks. It was the first volcanic eruption in the area in almost 800 years.
The proximity of the volcano to the Icelandic capital, Reykjavík, about 32 kilometers away, has brought a steady flow of tourists to the area, even with the country in a partial blockade to fight the coronavirus. About 30,000 people have visited the area since the eruption began, according to the Icelandic Tourist Office.
Live images of the area showed small lava flows from the new fissure.
Geophysicist Magnus Gudmundsson said the volcanic eruption could move north from its original location.
“We now see less lava coming from the two original craters,” he told The Associated Press. “This could be the beginning of the second stage.”
Iceland, located above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, has an average volcanic eruption every four to five years. The last took place in Holuhraun in 2014, when a fissure eruption spread Manhattan-sized lava into the inland mountain region.
In 2010, the ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano stopped many international air travel for several days.