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REYKJAVIK \u2014 A volcano in southwestern Iceland, the country\u2019s most populated region, began erupting Monday with lava fountains reaching high in the air and the glow lighting up the sky miles away in the center of the capital, Reykjavik.<\/p>\n
The location of the fissure, which is some 2.5 miles long and growing quickly, is not far from the Svartsengi Power Plant and the town of Grindav\u00edk, which was evacuated last month because of heightened seismic activity, leading to concerns than an eruption was likely.<\/p>\n
In the initial assessment Monday night, volcanologists had said that the eruption had occurred in one of the worst possible locations, posing a significant and immediate threat to both the evacuated town and the power plant.<\/p>\n
But after volcanologists had a chance to fly over the site of the eruption in the Reykjanes Peninsula, the immediate situation did not appear as dire as initially feared, though the size of the eruption was larger than anticipated and the direction of the lava\u2019s flow still unpredictable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThis is larger than previous eruptions on Reykjanes,\u201d Magnus Gudmundsson, a volcanologist and among the first people to view the eruption from the air, told The New York Times.<\/p>\n
Lava is currently flowing just 2.5 kilometers north of Grindav\u00edk, or 1.6 miles, according to Krist\u00edn Jonsdottir, the head of the volcanic activity department at the Icelandic Meteorological Office.<\/p>\n
However large the eruption, with the town of Grindav\u00edk evacuated, it currently poses no risk to people, a police official, Ulfar Ludviksson, told reporters.<\/p>\n
Still, the authorities were cautioning people not to get too close. Hjordis Gudmundsdottir, a spokeswoman for the Department of Civil Protection, urged people to stay away from the area, emphasizing that this was \u201cno tourist volcano.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe fissure size is expanding fast,\u201d she said in an interview.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
While an eruption had been anticipated for weeks, following a series of earthquakes, Monday\u2019s eruption came without any immediate advance warning. The Blue Lagoon, one of Iceland\u2019s top tourist destinations and located nearby, had reopened for guests on Sunday as concern that an eruption was imminent had diminished.<\/p>\n
Thousands of earthquakes had been detected in Iceland since late October, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office. In November, with homes and roads being damaged, the authorities declared a state of emergency and evacuated Grindavik<\/a>, a town of more than 3,000 people near the volcano.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In just the past two years, there have been three eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland\u2019s most populated corner and home to its capital. When Grindavik was ordered evacuated on Nov. 11, the authorities said in a statement that the country was \u201chighly prepared for such events.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIceland has one of the world\u2019s most effective volcanic preparedness measures,\u201d it said on its website.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The authorities raised the aviation alert to orange, because a volcanic eruption could pose a risk to aircraft flying in the North Atlantic if ash spewed into the sky.<\/p>\n But as of Monday night, Iceland\u2019s main airport, Keflavik, remained open, with this eruption not producing flight-stopping ash<\/p>\n One of the most memorable eruptions in Iceland\u2019s recent past involved the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in 2010. While that eruption was relatively small and caused no fatalities, the impact was widespread because a resulting ash cloud grounded much of Europe\u2019s air travel<\/a> for more than a week.<\/p>\n The Eyjafjallajokull (pronounced EYE-a-fyat-la-jo-kutl) volcano had been dormant for nearly two centuries before it sprang back to life more than 13 years ago.<\/p>\nThe country has seen this before, a lot.<\/h2>\n
Iceland has a lot of volcanoes.<\/h2>\n