‘Lava’s coming’: Iceland tourist recounts evacuation

STORY: “I've never experienced anything like that before. I'll be honest, I wasn't scared or anything. I just hope everybody got out okay,” American tourist Melissa Ezair said via Zoom from Reykjavik, the nation’s capital, where she and her husband were taken to in an evacuation bus. She added that "everyone seemed to handle it very well", with people there well prepared and taking "good care" of the tourists.The eruption began at 2023 GMT and the fissure was estimated to be about 2.9 kilometers (1.8 miles) long, roughly the same size as the last eruption in February, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said in a statement.Authorities had warned for weeks that an eruption was imminent on the Reykjanes peninsula just south of Iceland's capital Reykjavik.The head of the Nordic Volcanological Centre Rikke Pedersen said the eruption was quite close to the Svartsengi geothermal power plant and the Blue Lagoon spa, a major tourist attraction, but that preventive dykes had been built to protect the area from the lava.