Volcano erupts in southwestern Iceland, sending lava flowing toward nearby settlement

LONDON – A volcano has erupted in southwestern Iceland for the second one time in lower than a month, sending semi-molten rock spewing toward a nearby settlement.

The eruption simply sooner than 8 a.m. Sunday got here after a swarm of earthquakes close to town of Grindavik, the Icelandic Meteorological Office stated. The group used to be evacuated in a single day, Iceland’s RUV tv reported.

“Lava is flowing a few hundred meters north of the town, this is 400 to 500 meters,” Kristín Jónsdóttir from the Icelandic Meteorological Office told Iceland’s RUV television. ”Lava flows against Grindavik.”

Residents of Grindavik were previously evacuated from their homes in November and had to stay away from the town for six weeks following a series of earthquakes and an eventual volcanic eruption. They were allowed to return on Dec. 22.

The town of 3,800 near Iceland’s main airport was evacuated Nov. 10 when an earthquake swarm led to cracks and openings in the earth between the town and Sýlingarfell, a small mountain to the north. The nearby Blue Lagoon geothermal spa — one of Iceland’s biggest tourist attractions — also closed temporarily.

In the weeks since, defensive walls had been placed around the volcano in hopes of directing the magma away from the community. But the walls of the barriers built north of Grindavik have been breached and lava is on the move toward the community, the meteorological office said.

Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, averages an eruption each 4 to 5 years. The maximum disruptive in contemporary instances used to be the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed massive clouds of ash into the ambience and resulted in standard airspace closures over Europe.