Video images of the crack in the Earth's surface, stretching an estimated three kilometres (two miles), showed the fissure illuminating a plume of smoke rising into the dark morning sky that was visible 40 kilometres away in the capital of Reykjavik.
Iceland's Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management declared a state of emergency after lava flowed over a pipe transporting hot water to the Reykjanes peninsula, causing the pipe to burst.
"The hot water pipe is broken, which is causing a lack of hot water" in the southern part of the Reykjanes peninsula known as Sudurnes, home to about 28,000 people, the department said in a statement.
"It is now important that residents and businesses in Sudurnes save all electricity and hot water," it said.
"We are working on figuring out the next steps to make sure people get warm water," department spokeswoman Hjordis Gudmundsdottir told AFP, saying the water was also used to heat homes around the peninsula.
The department urged residents to refrain from hot showers or baths and conserve water.
- Hours of water left -
Hot water stored in tanks was now the only available source in the area, authorities said.
Under normal circumstances, the tanks can supply the area for three to six hours, but with the conservation measures they could last six to 12 hours.
Seven hours after the eruption began, the IMO said its power was diminishing and lava jets were primarily shooting out of three spots along the fissure.
Large white plumes of steam could be seen billowing from the crack, likely the result of magma entering into contact with groundwater, it said.
The first fountains of lava reached 50 to 80 metres high in some areas and the volcanic plume rose about three kilometres above the fissure, the IMO said.
It had warned Monday that magma accumulation beneath the area meant an eruption was likely in the coming days.
The site is around 40 kilometres southwest of Reykjavik, in the same area as two previous eruptions, the first on December 18 and the second on January 14, near the fishing village of Grindavik.
The roughly 4,000 residents of Grindavik had to be evacuated on November 11 after hundreds of earthquakes damaged buildings and opened up huge cracks in roads, shrouding the village's future in doubt.
The quakes were followed by a volcanic fissure on December 18 that spared the village, but a second on January 14 opened right on the town's edge, sending orange lava flowing into the streets and reducing three homes to ashes.
Residents have only been allowed back for short visits since the second eruption.
Thursday's eruption occurred around four to five kilometres north of Grindavik and two to three kilometres west of the Svartsengi power plant, which supplies electricity and water to around 30,000 people on the Reykjanes peninsula.
The plant was evacuated and has been run remotely since the first eruption in the region, and dykes have been built to protect it.
"The dykes are about 8-10 metres high, made of earth. They encircle the whole plant," Gudmundsdottir said.
- New era? -
Iceland's famed Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, a few kilometres north of the eruption, said it had closed Thursday and all guests had been evacuated, with lava later overflowing a road leading to the site.
Iceland is home to 33 active volcano systems, the highest number in Europe.
It straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a crack in the ocean floor separating the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.
But until March 2021, the Reykjanes peninsula had not experienced an eruption for eight centuries.
Further eruptions occurred in August 2022 and in July and December 2023, leading volcanologists to say it was probably the start of a new era of seismic activity in the region.
How an unprecedented magma river surged beneath an Iceland town
Paris (AFP) Feb 8, 2024 -
A river of magma flowed underneath an Icelandic fishing village late last year at a rate never before recorded, scientists said Thursday, as the region suffered yet another dramatic eruption.
Authorities in Iceland declared a state of emergency on Thursday as lava burst a key water pipe during the third volcanic fissure to hit the western Reykjanes peninsula since December.
Before 2021, the peninsula had not seen an eruption in 800 years, suggesting that volcanic activity in the region has reawoken from its slumber.
After analysing how magma shot up from a reservoir deep underground through a long, thin "vertical sheet" kilometres below the village of Grindavik in November, researchers warn that this activity is showing no signs of slowing down.
That prediction seemed to be borne out by the latest fissure that split the Earth's surface near the now-evacuated village, which occurred just hours before the new study was published in the journal Science.
Lead study author Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a researcher at the University of Iceland's Nordic Volcanological Centre, told AFP that it was difficult to say how long this new era of eruptions would continue.
But he estimated there were still months of uncertainty ahead for the threatened region.
- A mighty molten river -
Over six hours on November 10, the surging magma created a so-called dyke underground that is 15 kilometres (nine miles) long and four kilometres (2.5 miles) high but only a few metres wide, the study said.
Before Thursday's eruption, 6.5 million cubic metres of magma had accumulated below the region encompassing Grindavik, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office.
The magma had flowed at 7,400 cubic metres per second, "a scale we have not measured before" in Iceland or elsewhere, Sigmundsson said.
For comparison, the average flow of the Seine river in Paris is just 560 cubic metres a second. The magma flow was closer to those of larger rivers such as the Danube or Yukon.
The magma flow in November was also 100 times greater than those seen before the recent eruptions on the peninsula from 2021 to 2023, Sigmundsson said.
"The activity is speeding up," he said.
The November magma flow precipitated more serious eruptions in December, last month and again on Thursday.
Increasing underground pressure has also led to hundreds of earthquakes and pushed the ground upwards a few millimetres every day, creating huge cracks in the ground and damaging infrastructure in and around Grindavik.
The hidden crevasses that have riddled the town likely pose more danger than lava, Sigmundsson said, pointing to one discovered in the middle of a sports pitch earlier this week.
- More magma to come -
The village, as well as the nearby Svartsengi power plant and the famed Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, have been repeatedly evacuated because of the eruption threats.
The long-term viability of parts of the region sitting on such volatile ground has become a matter of debate.
Sigmundsson emphasised that such decisions were up to the authorities, but said this was definitely "a period of uncertainty for the town of Grindavik".
"We need to be prepared for a lot more magma to come to the surface," he said.
The researchers used seismic measurements and satellite data to model what was driving the magma flow.
Iceland sits on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a crack in the ocean floor separating the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.
As these plates have slowly moved apart over the last eight centuries, "tectonic stress" built up that was a key driving force for magma to surge through the underground geological crack, Sigmundsson said.
The researchers hope their analysis could inform efforts to understand what causes eruptions in other areas of the world.
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