Icelandic Volcano Spews Less Ash

Icelandic scientists say that the volcano which grounded air traffic all over Europe was still erupting but spewing less ash.

The volcano located southeast of Iceland’s capital Reykjavik had earlier sent plumes of ash as high as 11 kilometers.

Speaking to reporters here in the capital the scientists say they still can’t predict when the eruption will actually end.

[Pall Einarsson, Geophysics Professor, University of Iceland]:

„The eruption has been declining, or the eruptive, the explosive part of the eruption has been declining, in the last days and it is now considerably less than it was just four days ago. So definitely there is less ash going into the atmosphere now, than in the early part of the eruption.“

Scientists are also monitoring a potentially more dangerous volcano nearby, but there were no signs it had re-awakened.

Meanwhile as Europe’s air traffic slowly restarts, in Germany the International Air Travel Association criticized government handling of the volcano’s impact on air travel.

[Giovanni Bisignani, Director General and CEO, IATA]:

„Reopening the airspace in the UK was a big step forward but the situation continues to be an embarrassment for Europe. Why? Because they were late in taking decisions. Why? Because after 20 years we are still discussing a single European sky. Europe has to take leadership in speeding up certain kinds of processes.“

Officials at Eurocontrol in Belgium said for now the flight situation across Europe was improving.

[Brian Flynn, Deputy Director, Eurocontrol]:

„Happily the situation today is very significantly improved over what it has been over the previous days. We expect that more than 75 percent of the flights foreseen to operate in Europe will be able to operate today. That is that more than 20,000 flights out of 27 to 28,000 will be able to operate.“

Eurocontrol also said any additional flight bans would depend on volcanic ash risks dictated by the volcano’s behavior.

Foto: NTDTV