A volcano in southwestern Iceland has erupted for the sixth time since December, spewing bright orange lava plumes high into the air . The eruption began at 9.26pm local time on the Reykjanes peninsula , near the abandoned town of Grindavik, following a series of earthquakes, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office.
The total length of the fissure was about 3.9km and extended by 1.5 km in about 40 minutes, it added.
Residents of the capital Reykjavic posted on social media that they could see the plumes of lava rising from about 50km away. Live streams from the volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula showed glowing hot lava shooting up from the ground, their bright-yellow and orange colours set in sharp contrast against the dark night sky. "The impact is limited to a localised area near the eruption site.
It does not present a threat to life and the area nearby was evacuated," Iceland‘s ministry for foreign affairs said on social media X. “Iceland’s authorities are well prepared for seismic and volcanic activity which occurs regularly as a feature of our country’s natural geography.” The lava was not flowing towards the nearby Grindavik fishing town , whose nearly 4,000 residents have been mostly evacuated since November, the Met office said.
The eruption took place on the Sundhnukar crater row east of mountain Sylingafell, partly overlapping the other recent outbreaks on the Reykjanes peninsula, in a volcanic system which has no central crater but erupts by ope.