The lava flow from an active Icelandic volcano again engulfed a road leading to the coastal town of Grindavik and the popular Blue Lagoon geothermal spa on Saturday, with officials closely monitoring its path. Drone footage captured on the Reykjanes Peninsula shows the steadily advancing flow. The volcano had stabilised since a May 29 eruption, the fifth and most powerful since the volcanic system reawakened in December after 800 years.
Authorities monitoring the lava flow on Saturday said it was advancing significantly slower than during the previous two eruptions. "It’s just coming out of one vent. It seems like it's the same vent as the previous eruption," explained Gregory De Pascale, a structural geologist from the University of Iceland, standing beside the spewing black lava.
VIDEO: Iceland lava flow engulfs road
"They (these types of lava flows) advance slowly, you don’t really see them moving. But they just collapse on their own and they advance like that. And the core, even though it appears black, the core is still molten," added volcanologist Meline Payet-Clerc, from the University of Iceland's Department of Earth Science.
The same section of road, several kilometres (miles) from the town, was previously engulfed in February and March this year, and repaired and reopened both times. Grindavik was not subject to an evacuation order on Saturday as it was not deemed at imminent risk, due to the lava's slow progress. Residents can still enter the town via routes from the east and the west.
How Grindavik affected with volcanoes
Grindavik, which is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, has been threatened since a swarm of earthquakes in November forced an evacuation in advance of the initial Dec. 18 eruption. A subsequent eruption overwhelmed some defensive walls and consumed several buildings. The area is part of the Svartsengi volcanic system that was dormant for nearly 800 years before reawakening.
The volcano erupted again in December, January, February and March. The Feb. 8 eruption engulfed a pipeline, cutting off heat and hot water to thousands of people. Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, sees regular eruptions and is experienced at dealing with them. The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and led to widespread airspace closures over Europe.
(With inputs from agency)
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