Video of the moment when the eruption of the volcano in Iceland begins, which opened a crack in the ground 3 km long

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A volcano in Iceland erupted Saturday evening for the fourth time in three months, spewing orange jets of lava into the night sky. The moment of the beginning of the eruption was filmed. Authorities, the Associated Press reported, declared a state of emergency.

Iceland’s meteorological office said the eruption opened a crack in the ground about 3 kilometers long between the Stóra-Skógfell and Hagafell mountains on the Reykjanes Peninsula. The Met Office has warned for weeks that magma, semi-molten rock, is accumulating underground, making an eruption likely.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Blue Lagoon thermal station, one of Iceland’s top tourist attractions, when the eruption began, state broadcaster RUV said. No flight disruptions were reported at Keflavik, Iceland’s main airport, nearby.

The eruption site is a few kilometers northeast of Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 about 50 kilometers southwest of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, which was evacuated before the initial eruption in December. Several residents who returned to their homes were evacuated again on Saturday.

Grindavik was evacuated in November when the Svartsengi volcanic system woke up after nearly 800 years to a series of earthquakes that opened large fissures in the ground north of the city.

The volcano finally erupted on December 18, but lava flowed away from Grindavik. A second eruption that began on January 14 sent lava toward the city. Defensive walls that had been strengthened after the first eruption stopped some of the flow, but several buildings were destroyed by lava.

Both eruptions lasted only a few days. A third eruption began on February 8. It faded within hours, but not before a river of lava engulfed a pipe, cutting off the heat and hot water of thousands of people.

The RUV quoted geophysicist Magnús Tumi Guðmundsson as saying the latest eruption, Saturday evening, was the strongest yet. The Met Office said some lava was flowing towards defensive barriers around Grindavik.

Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, regularly experiences volcanic eruptions and has great experience dealing with them. The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which threw huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and led to widespread closures of airspace in Europe.

No confirmed deaths have been reported from any of the recent eruptions, but a worker was reported missing after falling into an open fissure in the volcano.