Iceland’s Volcanic Eruption Created Blazing Lava Fissure

• A volcano has erupted in Iceland, spewing lava and smoke out of a miles-long fissure in the earth.
• Aerial footage of the eruption was shared by Iceland’s national police.
• The glow of the eruption could be seen all the way from Iceland’s capital, around 25 miles away.

A volcano erupted in Iceland on Monday evening, creating a miles-long fissure spewing lava and smoke.

Aerial footage of the eruption on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula was captured and shared by the country’s national police on Facebook.

In the footage, fountains of lava can be seen erupting from the fissure, along with an enormous plume of smoke. The eruption lit up the sky and landscape, as lava spread into the surrounding terrain.

The fissure is estimated to be four kilometers long — or around 2.5 miles, according to Iceland’s meteorological office. The southern edge of the fissure is less than two miles from the nearby town of Grindavik.

The town’s over 3,000 inhabitants were evacuated in November, after a series of earthquakes left large cracks in the ground and gaping holes pushing out steam.

According to the met office, hundreds of cubic meters of lava were estimated to be flowing out of the eruption during the first two hours.

The glow of the eruption could be seen all the way from Iceland’s capital of Reykjavík — which is around 25 miles away from Grindavik — according to the Reykjavík Grapevine, a local news outlet.

The eruption was also captured by web cameras in Iceland, which have been livestreaming the incident to thousands of viewers.

Before the eruption, volcano experts said in November that it was unlikely to match the destructiveness of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010, which disrupted air travel in Western Europe for weeks.