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Iceland volcano erupts, experts play down flight risk

21 May 2011 23:53 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A volcano erupted under Iceland’s biggest glacier on Saturday, but geologists played down the likelihood it would cause the same disruption to air traffic as one that exploded in a different area last year, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.

The Grimsvotn volcano, under the Vatnajokull glacier in southeast Iceland, has thrown a plume of white smoke about 15 km (9 miles) into the air, Met Office geologist Hjorleifur Sveinbjornsson told Reuters.

He said Grimsvotn, one of Iceland’s most active volcanoes, last exploded in 2004.

"It can be a big eruption, but it is unlikely to be like last year," he added, referring to the eruption under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, which is to the south of the new eruption, in April 2010.

He said the volcanic plume was of white smoke and was going straight up into the air.

"Grimsvotn is a very powerful volcano, so we’re monitoring it closely, even if the last few eruptions have been harmless," University of Iceland geophysicist Pall Einarsson was quoted on the website of newspaper Morgunbladid as saying.

He said ash was also coming from the volcano, but added: "We do not expect this to be a big one as it’s coming from the same crater as the last three eruptions, which were all small."

The volcano last year caused air traffic chaos for days after spewing dark ash into the air and causing fears of accidents due to possible damage to plane engines.

Sveinbjornsson said a team of scientists had flown out to the area to gather more information. He said no people were threatened by the volcano, which was in an uninhabited area where the nearest farm was 100 km (62 miles) away.