Lava continues to spurt from a volcano in southwestern Iceland after it erupted for a fifth time since December, forcing almost 4,000 people in a nearby fishing town to evacuate their homes. The Icelandic Meteorological Office described it as the most powerful in the area since volcanic systems on the Reykjanes peninsula became active three years ago.
'These jets of magma are reaching like 50 metres (165 feet) into the atmosphere, said McGarvie, an honorary researcher at Lancaster University. That just immediately strikes me as a powerful eruption. And that was my first impression – then some numbers came out, estimating how much was coming out per minute or per second and it was, wow.'
'A fissure has also opened up, stretching to at least 2.5km (1.6 miles) in length. It's a continuous curtain of fire – but as it develops with time, it will focus into certain points and eventually often only one or two craters will be active in the long run,' Rikke Pedersen, an expert at the Nordic Volcanological Centre at the University of Iceland, told Al Jazeera.
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