REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) – Steam and lava spewed out of a new crack at an Icelandic volcano on Monday that started erupting last month, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of hikers who had come to see the spectacle.
First spotted by a sightseeing helicopter, the new canyon was about 500 meters long and about a kilometer (about half a mile) from its original eruption site in the Geldinga Valley.
Iceland’s emergency ministry announced an immediate evacuation of the area. It said there was no immediate danger to life due to the site’s distance from popular hiking trails.
The Icelandic Meteorological Bureau said the new volcanic activity did not affect traffic at the nearby Keflavik airport.
The long-dormant volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwest Iceland came to life on March 20 after tens of thousands of earthquakes had been recorded in the area in the past three weeks. It was the first volcanic eruption in nearly 800 years.
The volcano’s proximity to Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, about 32 kilometers (20 miles) away, has brought a steady stream of tourists to the area, even as the country has been partially closed to combat the coronavirus. About 30,000 people have visited the area since the eruption began, according to the Icelandic Tourist Board.
Live images from the area showed small spouts of lava emerging from the new crack.
Geophysicist Magnus Gudmundsson said the volcanic eruption could move north from its original location.
“We are now seeing less lava coming out of the two original craters,” he told The Associated Press. “This could be the start of the second phase.”
Located above a volcanic hotspot in the North Atlantic Ocean, Iceland has a volcanic eruption every four to five years on average. The last was in Holuhraun in 2014, when a fissure eruption the size of Manhattan spread lava across the highland interior.
In 2010, ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano stopped many international air travel for several days.