A volcano in Iceland erupted on Sunday after hundreds of earthquakes shook the Reykjanes peninsula, prompting evacuations in a town near where a fissure opened up and spewed lava last month.
The eruption happened at about 8 a.m. local time near Sundhnjúkar north of the town of Grindavik, according to local news media and the nation’s civil defense agency. Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson, a volcanologist who advises the civil defense agency, said he was boarding a Coast Guard helicopter to fly over the eruption, some 10 minutes after it was reported to have started.
At least 200 earthquakes struck the area near Grindavik, 32 miles southwest of the capital, Reykjavik, on Sunday starting at about 3 a.m. local time, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office. Before the eruption, the civil defense agency ordered the evacuation of Grindavik and said an eruption was imminent.
The latest eruption happened along a row of volcanoes on the Reykjanes Peninsula, where a fissure opened up in December and erupted, creating a glowing and winding river of lava.
While volcanic eruptions are not uncommon in Iceland, volcanoes on the Reykjanes Peninsula had been dormant for about 800 years until 2021. Since then, there have been at four eruptions on the peninsula, where about two-thirds of Iceland’s population lives.
This is a developing story.