COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – A volcanic eruption began in the southwest of Iceland near the capital Reykjavik on Friday after thousands of small earthquakes in the area in recent weeks, the country’s weather office said.
The eruption took place near Fagradalsfjall, a mountain on the Reykjanes peninsula, about 30 km south-west of the capital.
“I can see the glowing red sky from my window,” said Rannveig Gudmundsdottir, a resident of the city of Grindavik, just 8 km from the eruption.
“Everyone here gets in their cars to drive there,” she said.
More than 40,000 earthquakes have occurred on the peninsula in the past four weeks, a huge jump from the 1,000-3,000 earthquakes recorded since 2014 each year.
Photos on local media sites showed a bright red night sky. A photo posted by the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) on Twitter showed smoke rising from bright glowing lava flows.
The eruption poses no immediate danger to people in Grindavik or to critical infrastructure, the IMO said.
“I think we could not hope for anything better than that,” Sara Barsotti, coordinator of the IMO volcanic hazards, told Reuters.
Unlike the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which stopped about 900,000 flights and forced hundreds of Icelanders out of their homes, the eruption is not expected to blow as much as or smoke into the atmosphere, IMO said.
Iceland is between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, one of the largest on the planet, and is a seismic and volcanic hotspot as the two plates move in opposite directions.
The source of the eruption is a large amount of molten rock, known as magma, which has pushed to the surface in recent weeks and triggered the earthquakes.
The number of earthquakes has been declining in recent days, but geologists said an eruption would be less likely.
Reykjavik International Keflavik Airport was not closed after the eruption, but each airline had to decide for itself whether they wanted to fly or not, IMO said.
A helicopter with scientific personnel on board was scrambled to observe the eruption, the IMO said.
Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen; Edited by Leslie Adler and Matthew Lewis