2023-07-11 13:32:09
Large lava flows escaping from nearly a kilometer long faults: despite calls from authorities to avoid traveling to the site of the new eruption in Iceland, southwest of Reykjavik, the first intrepid did not were able to resist the call of the magma “pure orange like the sun”.
If the eruption remains “low intensity”, according to volcanologists, the first estimates indicate that its flow is significantly more powerful than the two previous eruptions in 2021 and 2022 on the Reykjanes peninsula, an area where lava has returned. for two years following eight centuries in slumber.
Located 30 kilometers as the crow flies from Reykjavik, the new eruptive faults reached a total size of around 900 meters during the night, once morest 200 to 300 meters initially, according to the latest point from the Icelandic Meteorological Institute ( IMO), around 5 a.m. Tuesday.
Gas pollution, in particular sulfur dioxide, “is high and dangerous” on the site, warned the IMO, which advises tourists not to go there before more precise estimates and closes access to the site. around 11 p.m. Monday.
>> Images of the volcanic eruption: Impressive images of the eruption of a volcano near Reykjavik / Video news / 27 sec. / today at 12:17
No impact on air traffic
During the six months of the March 2021 eruption, then the three weeks of the August 2022 eruption, hundreds of thousands of visitors came to admire the hypnotic spectacle of the lava, relatively easy to access from Reykjavik on the outskirts of Mount Fagradallsfjall and the valleys of Meradalir and Geldingadalir.
Unlike explosive eruptions spitting out thousands of tons of dust, such as the still famous one at Eyjafjallajökull which paralyzed air traffic in Europe in 2010, so-called “effusive” eruptions have little impact, apart from lava flows and local toxic gas peaks.
>> Read also: The situation promises to be particularly difficult for European skies this summer
A show lasting several days or months
The handful of visitors who managed to reach the small Mount Litli Hrutur, which means “little ram” in Icelandic, before it closed describe the experience of a lifetime.
Down near the lava, we are also seized by a thick smoke linked not to the gases, but to the foam all around the site which ignites and burns under the 1200 degrees of the molten liquid. Impossible to say how long this natural spectacle will last. It may as well last a few days, a month, six months as in 2021 or even longer.
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