Updated 01.18 | Published 01.08
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full screenIceland has been hit by a new volcanic eruption. The tourist magnet Blå lagunen has been evacuated for tourists and closed down. Photo: Marco Di Marco/AP/TT
Around 700 people have been evacuated from the tourist attraction Blue Lagoon in Iceland after a new volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula, police told Icelandic Rúv.
The nearby coastal town of Grindavík, which has been evacuated several times in recent months, has also been emptied of residents.
The eruption began at 20:23 on Saturday and is believed to be the strongest of the four eruptions that have hit the area since December, according to Iceland’s meteorological authority.
The lava is advancing in the direction of Grindavík at a speed of about one kilometer per hour, the Coast Guard estimated shortly before midnight.
It is the seventh eruption on Reykjanes counted from March 2021. Before that, there had been no volcanic eruption on the peninsula for 800 years.
Several houses in the town of Grindavík were destroyed by the advance of the lava in February.