New volcanic eruption on Iceland's Reykjanes peninsula: weather office

Reykjavik: A new volcanic eruption began on Wednesday on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwestern Iceland, the country s meteorological office said, sh...

Reykjavik: A new volcanic eruption began on Wednesday on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwestern Iceland, the country's meteorological office said, shortly after authorities evacuated the nearby town of Grindavik.

"An eruption has started near Sundhnuksgigar, north of Grindavik," the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said in a statement, almost three weeks after the end of a previous eruption that had been ongoing since March 16.

"The eruption cloud reached an altitude of about 3.5 kilometres (2.2 miles) at the beginning of the eruption" and the length of the fissure was estimated at over one kilometre, it added.

A large white cloud of smoke could be seen billowing up against the blue sky, with orange lava spewing out of the crack in the ground.

Volcanologist Benedikt Ofeigsson told Icelandic public broadcaster RUV the fissure was growing and was more than 2.5 kilometres long an hour after the start of the eruption.