REYKJAVIK, ICELAND (AP) – Steam and lava erupted on Monday from a new rift at an Icelandic volcano that erupted last month, evacuating hundreds of hikers who came to see the spectacle.
The new rift, first spotted by a remarkable 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. It is said that there is no imminent danger to life due to the distance of the site from popular hiking trails.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office said the new volcanic activity was not 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 area in the past three weeks. It was the first volcanic eruption in the area in nearly 800 years.
The proximity of the volcano to the capital of Iceland, Reykjavík, about 32 kilometers away, has brought a steady stream of tourists to the area, even with the country partially locked up to combat the coronavirus. According to the Icelandic Tourism Board, about 30,000 people have visited the area since the eruption began.
Vivid footage from the area showed small lava spouts coming out of the new rift.
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 phase.”
Iceland, located above a volcanic focal point in the North Atlantic Ocean, has an average of one volcanic eruption every four to five years. The last one was in Holuhraun in 2014, when a tornado erupted lava as large as Manhattan over the inland highlands.
In 2010, ash from the Icelandic Eyjafjallajokull volcano closed many international air travel for a few days.