Lava advances across parking lots at the Blue Lagoon
Iceland’s Blue Lagoon, one of its prime tourism attractions, has closed down for now due to advancing lava flows from a nearby volcanic eruption.
The eruption last week, latest in a series of at least seven in the past year along the Reykjanes peninsula near the country’s main international airport, has spilled lava onto parking lots and service facilities at the lagoon, which is heated by Iceland’s extensive geothermal underground. So far, the lagoon itself has not been affected.
The lagoon is a man-made feature, filled with warm water from the nearby Svartsengi geothermal power plant, which transforms superheated undreground water into heating for the entire Reykjanes peninsula and 75 megawatts of electric power fed into the national grid.
A live video feed of portions of the eruption area is available on YouTube.
