It has been reported that a volcano in southwest Iceland has spewed lava and smoke for a second day on Friday, causing fears of a contamination wave hours after its eruption forced the evacuation of a spa resort.
On Thursday evening, molten rock fountains shot into the night air when the volcano first erupted on the Reykjanes peninsula, igniting the night sky with glowing red hues.
Since the beginning of the year, the flow from the volcano has slowed down, stated Rikke Pedersen, head of the Nordic Volcanological Centre. I can see that there is a quite intense fountaining and high output in the beginning, but once it starts to decline, we don’t know how long it will last because we do not know how intense it is at the beginning.”
As a result of the eruption, the meteorological office has warned that the wind will carry gas pollution from the eruption to the south and southeast of the country.
Several of the nearby spas, including the Blue Lagoon spa, which boasts the largest outdoor pools heated by geothermal energy and was evacuated late on Thursday, remained closed on Friday as a precaution.
“I went there with my daughter and we were just plain tourists, looking for a good day out,” said real estate broker Dennis Murphy from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, who was with his daughter at the time.
A few seconds later, the ground was exploding right next to us, so the 53-year-old told us that it all happened so quickly. As they were in the process of being evacuated, they watched as the sky turned red.
In essence, the staff were throwing all of our belongings into our backpacks, telling us, “Get out of here. You’ve got to get out of here. The staff was throwing all of our belongings into our bags, telling us to get out,” he said.
It was reported that around 1,300 guests and staff were at the spa, as reported in the Icelandic daily Morgunbladid.
Pedersen explained that the amount of lava initially flowing from the volcano was comparable to the amount of lava flowing from the volcano prior to May’s eruption, which was about 2,000 cubic metres (70,600 cubic feet) per second.
During the day, Pedersen said that the length of the fissure was expanded from 3.9km late on Thursday to 5km (3.1 miles) during the day, the distance it has been expanding since it last erupted in December.
It does not appear that Grindavik, which was threatened by burning lava during some earlier eruptions and struck by earthquakes, has been directly affected by this eruption.
In Pedersen’s opinion, the lava flow stopped short of a road nearby.
The Keflavik Airport in the capital of Iceland was not affected by the strike as of Friday, according to a statement on its website.
Timenews1 provided that news.
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