A volcano system in southwestern Iceland erupted on Thursday, for the third time since December, with fountains of bright orange lava visible from Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, about 30 miles away.
The eruption occurred at 6 a.m. on a mountain ridge on the Reykjanes Peninsula, according to the country’s Meteorological Office. A significant share of Iceland’s population of about 375,000 lives in the area, although they did not appear to be at risk.
Video taken from a Coast Guard helicopter showed a fissure estimated to be nearly two miles wide. And later in the morning, a stream of lava flowed over the main road that connects Grindavik, a nearby fishing town, to Reykjavik.
Volcanic eruptions are not uncommon in Iceland, but the volcanoes on the Reykjanes Peninsula had been dormant for about 800 years until 2021. There have been several eruptions since, and experts say that the threat to the peninsula, where about 31,000 residents live in several towns, will not end soon.
“It’s like a tap of water that is now open underneath the ground,” said Kristin Maria Birgisdottir, a spokeswoman for Grindavik’s mayor, adding that unless it was “turned off soon,” the peninsula would be seeing “continuous events.”