A volcano in Iceland was still erupting on Tuesday, with lava spewing into the air in a spectacular display after magma breached the surface not far from a town and Iceland's famous Blue Lagoon spa.
The eruption in southwest Iceland began on Monday night, with live-streamed footage showing plumes of red smoke billowing up from scorching white lava - all cast against the pitch-black Icelandic night.
The volcano erupted about 2½ miles northeast of Grindavik, a town that was evacuated last month. Police warned people to stay away from the area.
Enjoy some insane drone footage of Iceland’s volcano. The drone didn’t survive, but the footage did. Skilled piloting by @airbazoo pic.twitter.com/Ck75qFvaNP
"Eruption does not present a threat to life," the Icelandic government said on Tuesday in a statement on its website. Officials also said that flights had not been impacted and that the risk to local infrastructure was being "monitored."
Iceland's meteorological office said an "earthquake swarm" on the Reykjanes Peninsula preceded the eruption, which began about 10:15pm local time on Monday night.
Coast guard authorities and scientists were investigating the lava flow, which had slowed from "hundreds of cubic metres per second" in the first two hours of eruption, the office said.
If You Missed It: Volcano in Iceland spewing Molten Lava nonstop constantly 24/7 pic.twitter.com/3puaUxRsvQ
State meteorologists predicted about midnight that the fissure was about 13,000 feet (about 3,900m) long, which is many times longer than other eruptions in the area in recent years, the South Iceland Volcanoes and Natural Hazard Group said in a Facebook post. The initial eruption was also much stronger than recent ones.
The southern end of the fissure is about 8,200 feet from Grindavik, according to the post, and it appears the lava may flow north. But things could quickly change as the crack has extended at both ends.
Armann Hoskuldsson, a volcanologist studying the eruption, told the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service that no lava was flowing toward a power plant in the area and that no other structures were in danger. The eruption could last up to 10 days.
The eruption is not endangering power lines, the utility company Landsnet said on Facebook.
An incredible angle of a volcano erupting in Iceland pic.twitter.com/5g6K1qoLpe
— thethingaccount (@thethingaccount) December 19, 2023
On Nov. 10, police ordered the nearly 4,000 residents of Grindavik to leave after scientific measurements determined that a tunnel of magma had extended underneath the coastal town. Monday's eruption occurred in that formation, the meteorological office said.
Grindavik is not far from Iceland's famous Blue Lagoon geothermal spa resort, which has been closed as a safety precaution.
It isn't clear how much damage the eruption will cause, Icelandic President Gudni Thorlacius Johannesson posted on Facebook. He said his priority is to save human life, but authorities would do all they could to protect structures.
Apocalyptic scenes coming out of Iceland after a volcano erupted.
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) December 19, 2023
The volcano eruption began yesterday in Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula- 3km north of the town of Grindavík.
pic.twitter.com/hOvfvzpIOX
Iceland - nicknamed the Land of Fire and Ice - is a hot spot for volcanic activity thanks to its position over tectonic plates that are moving in opposite directions, allowing magma to rise. The country has more than 30 active volcanic systems.
This was the first time in half a century that a sizeable populated area had to be fully evacuated in anticipation of an eruption.
The long-gestating threat of eruption raised fears of destructive lava flows, though scientists played down the potential for significant disruption of global travel or decrease in air quality in the Northern Hemisphere.
Magma shifting under Earth's crust had produced tens of thousands of earthquakes in the area in October and November, damaging buildings and splitting open roads, leaving some impassable.
Exactly where the volcanic system might erupt had been a matter of uncertainty - and high anxiety.
This one was not what people might think of as a stereotypical volcano: a conical mountain spewing lava. It involved a stealthier, more unpredictable subterranean flow of magma, tunneling below the Reykjanes Peninsula, slowly pushing its way toward the surface.
"All volcanoes are kind of humbling, but a volcano that appears whenever it wants to is really humbling," Robin George Andrews, a volcanologist, science writer and author of the book ‘Super Volcanoes,’ said before Monday's eruption.
"We might think we are all mighty and powerful, but we can't predict what will happen, and, when it does, we just have to deal with it. These fissures can just open up. It's crazy. It's like sorcery or something."
Andrews later described the Iceland eruption fissure as a "beast."