Tourists and residents evacuated after volcano erupts in Iceland

A volcano began erupting in southwestern Iceland on Tuesday as tourists at the nearby Blue Lagoon and residents of local communities were evacuated, Euronews reported.

Flames and smoke shot through the air as a fissure opened near the town of Grindavík, about 50 kilometres southwest of the capital, Reykjavik, where roughly 40 homes have been evacuated, according to national broadcaster RUV. 

Residents mostly vacated the community, located on the Reykjanes Peninsula, in 2023 when the volcano came to life after lying dormant for 800 years.

A swarm of small earthquakes began at around 6:30am local time on 1 April, similar to previous eruptions. The eruption just north of the protective barrier near Grindavík then began at 9:45am, according to Iceland's Met Office (IMO).

Warning sirens started to sound when the orange-red fissure reached the town's defence walls at around 10am. IMO has said that the fissure is now around 700 metres long, and “it cannot be ruled out that it may continue to open further south.”

“Emergency responders in Grindavík have reported that earthquakes can be felt in the town, and signs of deformation are also visible there, suggesting that fault movements could occur within the town itself,” it added.

Runólfur Þórhallsson, Iceland’s director of civil protection, has said the eruption has the potential be much larger than recent ones because the magma tunnel is more extensive and a lot of magma has built up.

Iceland sits above a volcanic hotspot in the North Atlantic and, on average, sees one eruption every four to five years.

Experts have warned that volcanic activity in the Reykjanes peninsula has entered a new era, with the frequency of eruptions having surged. This is the 11th such event to have occurred since 2021, when this new eruption period began.