After it was announced in the past hours that the Fimmvörduháls eruption might have ended, today a new column of smoke was seen in a different area, further to the West and under the Eyjafjallajökull glacier. The volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson said that it is likely that the main crater at Eyjafjallajökull, the one responsible for the 1821-1823 eruption and inactive since then, is now erupting. The eruption should be 2 kilometers long, with a direction north-south.
While scientists and Icelandic Civil Protection are trying to determine the extent of the eruption, it has been already announced that the new eruption is significantly bigger than the first one, also because of the direct contact of magma with the glacier. Magma has started to melt the icecap, and the first huge floods have started to come down from the area of the new eruption, with water coming from both sides of the outlet glacier Gígjökull. The Ring Road has been broken – and all traffic blocked, of course – to avoid that the flood will discharge all its energy on the new Markarfljót bridge and ultimately damage it beyond repair. According to the latest updates, the operation was successful, at least for the time being – the flood has reached the bridge and is now flowing into a hole in a levee close to the bridge.
We are going to keep you updated as we gather more information for the many available news sources; we will try to include a map as we did for the first eruption. Stay tuned and do not forget to join our Facebook page or use our RSS feed on the top right of the page.