REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) – Steam and lava erupted Monday from a new fissure 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 detected by a tourist helicopter, was about 500 meters long and about a kilometer from the original eruption site in the Geldinga Valley.
The Icelandic emergency management department announced an immediate evacuation of the area. It was said that there was no imminent danger to life due to the distance from the site through popular hiking trails.
The Icelandic Meteorological Office said 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 almost 800 years.
The proximity of the volcano to the Icelandic capital, Reykjavík, about 32 kilometers away, has brought a steady stream of tourists to the area, even with the country partially closed 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 bursts of lava coming 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 on a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, averages one volcanic eruption every four to five years. The last one was in Holuhraun in 2014, when a fissure eruption spread lava the size of Manhattan over the inland mountain region.
In 2010, the ashes of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano stopped many international air travelers for several days.