Though remote and sparsely populated, the area is popular with hikers in the summer. Officials earlier evacuated all tourists in the region after thousands of small earthquakes rocked the area in recent days.
Although Sunday’s fissure eruption was more powerful than the one on Friday, experts said the situation is contained and is unlikely to result in the same level of aviation chaos as 2010. In April that year, an eruption at the Eyjafjallajokul volcano wreaked havoc on millions of travellers. More than 100,000 flights were cancelled after officials closed Europe’s air space for five days out of fear that volcanic ash could damage jet engines.
Dave McGarvie, a volcanologist at Britain’s Open University, said the fissure eruptions produce only very small amounts of ash — they produce mostly lava — and are highly unlikely to cause any aviation disruption.
“It’s good news in the sense that it appears to be very small, very contained. It’s not spreading under the glacier — if it did you’ll get a lot of flooding,” he said.
He said Icelandic authorities are mostly concerned that the main volcano under the ice cap will erupt, but there are no signs so far that this is imminent.
Article Appeared @http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/08/31/iceland_issues_volcano_aviation_alert_again_after_new_eruption.html