Video images shot live show lava escaping from a crack in the ground. The eruption started shortly before 6:00 am in Switzerland, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO).
The main 2.4 km short crack and a second smaller one opened up to 500 meters, said the weather agency in the early afternoon.
Residents of the Reykjanes peninsula are encouraged to stay at home due to air pollution.
The fishermen’s village in Grindavik, closest to the eruption, was evacuated, as was the famous Blue Lagoon site.
Most of the 4,000 inhabitants of Grindavik had been evacuated at the end of 2023, shortly before the first volcanic eruption in the region. Since then, almost all the houses have been sold to the State and the majority of the inhabitants have left.
The evacuation of some 100 people who were still in the village took place without difficulty, said a police officer Margret Kristin Palsdottir, at the Ruv public channel.
Tourists’ access near the eruption has also been prohibited.
“Of course, we understand that this is a fascinating event, especially for tourists who are not as accustomed to it as us,” she said.
A specialist in IMO geophysics, Benedikt Ofeigsson, told the RUV channel that the eruption did not seem as important as the previous ones and that it was well located because it was not near infrastructure.
The peninsula volcanoes had not erupted for eight centuries until March 2021, when an increased seismic activity period began.
Volcanologists believe that volcanic activity in the region had entered a new era.
This last eruption has no impact on international flights, according to the site of Keflavík airport.
In 2010, a volcanic eruption in another part of Iceland caused chaos in transport around the world, the ashes projected in the atmosphere that led to aerial space closings in Europe.
Iceland is home to 33 active volcanic systems, more than any other European country.
It is located on the medio-Atlantic dorsal, a fault in the ocean floor which separates the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates and causes earthquakes and eruptions.