Power of lava

After weeks of warnings that semi-molten rock was building up under the ground, the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said last Saturday that an eruption at 8.23pm local time had opened a nearly 3km-long fissure in the earth between two mountains.

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Lava was flowing mainly south and south-east and could reach the ocean, the IMO said. Defensive dykes and barriers were being reinforced to stop a "significantly wider" lava bed wrecking the main coastal road.

By midday on Sunday, scientists said flows appeared to be slowing from their initial speed of 1km an hour, but still posed a danger to infrastructure in and around Grindavik.

Halldór Geirsson, an associate professor at the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland, told Reuters the eruption was "quite energetic, and there was a lot of material coming out - more than in the previous eruption".