Sunday, March 21, 2010 – The Iceland volcano eruption started just past midnight Iceland time and took the form of smoke and lava being thrust through the surface of the Eyjafjallajökul Glacier, southern Iceland. The location of the eruption, beneath a glacier, is doubly troubling as there are now fears of floods if the eruption continues and ice continues to melt.
The eruption is a small one,” said Agust Gunnar Gylfason, a risk analyst at the Civil Protection Department.
“An eruption in and close to this glacier can be dangerous due to possible flooding if the fissure forms under the glacier,” he said. “That is why we initiated our disaster response plan.”
Authorities evacuated hundreds of people after a volcano erupted beside a glacier in southern Iceland, Iceland’s civil protection agency said Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
This is the first eruption since 1821 for this volcano. Scientists admit that there was little warning of an eruption, all the more proof that one can never be too complacent with nature.
Watch the Iceland volcano eruption in this video below:
All flight traffic to and from Iceland has been stopped because of the volcanic eruption. About a thousand Icelandair passengers which were going to Europe this morning are now strandedin Iceland, according to mbl.is. These are flights to London, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Oslo and Stockholm.
Scientists can see lava flows in the half-mile long fissure, and authorities are watching for further activity.
Authorities evacuated some 450 people in the area 100 miles southeast of the capital, Reykjavik, as a precaution, said Vidir Reynisson, the department manager for the Icelandic Civil Protection Department.
Rash occurred next to the glacier Eyjafjallajökull, the fifth largest in Iceland.
Geophysicist Páll Einarsson said that all known eruptions in Eyjafjallajökul have been in connection with the neighboring volcano of Katla underneath a certain icecap, and now that Eyjafjallajökull has started to erupt, Katla might follow. He said: “Katla is…a completely different kind [of volcano,] but they seem to be connected, because all known eruptions in Eyjafjallajökull were related to Katla eruptions and therefore it seems that they might a prelude to eruptions in Katla,” Einarsson said. He also said that this eruption might somehow work as a detonater for a “dynamite explosion.”
Related posts:
