The Ministry of Civil Protection and Emergency Management said late Monday that Icelandic police have restricted access to the volcano and residents of the Reykjanes Peninsula have been encouraged to close windows and turn off ventilation.
Gas pollution is high and dangerous around the eruption, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the capital, and that pollution is likely in Reykjanis and Reykjavik, Iceland’s Met Office Fedor said Tuesday morning.
However, A.Jinfrared quality It was still considered “very good” or “good” in the Reykjavík area on Tuesday, according to the Environment Agency’s website.
Magnus Tommy Gudmundsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, told Icelandic broadcaster RUV that Tuesday’s footage of the eruption showed the fissure had shortened, lava flows had slowed, and the gas plume was smaller.
“This has become a mini eruption, which is very good news,” he said, adding that it is still impossible to estimate how long it will last.
“In all likelihood it won’t be big, it certainly could go on for a long time, but fortunately we’re not looking at a continuation of what we saw in the first few hours,” he said.
The Icelandic government said in a statement late Monday that the eruption follows intense seismic activity over the past few days and is classified as a fault eruption that does not usually produce large explosions or a large amount of ash in the stratosphere.
Flights to and from Iceland were not disrupted.
(Reporting by Louise Brioche Rasmussen and Victoria Clesty; Editing by Robert Purcell, Devika Syamnath, Emma Romney and Alexandra Hudson)
