Tourists and residents alike have been forced to evacuate amid a volcanic eruption in Iceland.
Red-hot magma and lava was seen spewing from the Sundhnukur or Sundhnukagigar volcano on Wednesday morning - the latest in a nearly two-year-long series of eruptions from the fault.
In the early hours of July 16, molten rock was pushed up through Earth's crust, opening a fissure in the ground measuring almost a kilometre long.
Police have ordered people to leave from the Blue Lagoon, a luxury geothermal spa resort, and the nearby town of Grindavik - which has been largely deserted since 2023 following a string of volcanic activity.
The fissure eruptions, as the outbreaks are known, are characterised by lava flows emerging from long cracks, rather than from a central crater.
Grindavik, just metres from the fissure, was home to some 4,000 people before it was evacuated.
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|Police have ordered people to leave from the Blue Lagoon, a luxury geothermal spa resort, and the nearby town of Grindavik - which has been largely deserted since 2023 following a string of volcanic activity
But this morning's latest activity does "not threaten any infrastructure at this time," Iceland's meteorological office said in a statement.
"Based on GPS measurements and deformation signals, it is likely that this was a relatively small eruption."
Meanwhile, flights at Keflavik airport, just outside capital Reykjavik, have not been affected.
The eruptions on Wednesday mark the ninth in a row after an intense series of earthquakes broke out in November 2023.
So far, the lava spews - on Iceland's Reykjanes peninsula - have not posed a threat to Reykjavik, nor ejected large volumes of ash into the air.
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GETTY | Police direct traffic out of Grindavik during a previous evacuation
However, an uptick in volcanic activity since 2021 has scared off tourists from visiting the "Land of Ice and Fire".
According to the Icelandic Travel Industry Association, earthquakes and eruptions on the peninsula negatively impacted tourist traffic between January and February 2024.
That decrease came the season before Sundhnukur's second-largest eruption on record - between November 20 and December 9, 2024.
The most recent eruption before today's, meanwhile, fell on April 1 this year.
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|PICTURED: Lava rips through at least three homes in Grindavik
Like this morning's, it forced the evacuation of the Blue Lagoon and Grindavik - with lava breaking through protective barriers in a six-hour-long eruption.
In 2021, geological systems in the region which had laid dormant for some 800 years sprung back into life.
Experts say the peninsula, just south of the Reykjavik and home to 30,000 people, could experience so-called fissure eruptions now for the next several centuries to come.