Flight chaos threat for Brits as experts fear four of Iceland’s volcanoes are set to erupt just like Eyjafjallajökull that grounded jets in 2010
FOUR mighty volcanoes in Iceland including the one which caused air travel chaos across Europe in 2010 could erupt 'at any moment' say experts.
Seven years ago the massive Eyjafjallajökull blew sending choking clouds of ash into the atmosphere across the continent.
The dust clouds grounded 100,000 flights costing Europe's economy an estimated £4 billion.
Now experts have told the that four of the country’s biggest volcanos are showing signs they have 'woken up'.
It's claimed Katla, Hekla, Bárðarbunga and Grímsvötn are on the brink of blowing their tops.
Hazel Rymer, Professor of Environmental Volcanology at Open University fears fiery Hekla poses the biggest danger of bringing Europe to a standstill.
“When Hekla erupts, it's effects are usually felt very severely by the local people,” she said.
“It can have an impact internationally just as the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull did in 2010.We are on our guard."
Hekla, which stands at 1,488 metres high, last erupted in 2000 and is long overdue a new blast.
And Pall Einarsso, a geophysicist at the university of Iceland, says its internal pressure is already higher than the last two times it blew.
He says Europe could see Hekla erupt at any moment.
“This could certainly do terrible things, even though most eruptions are small and rather harmless,” he said. “This could be spectacular.”
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Katla last erupted in 1919 but research indicates it is now ready to blow.
Bárðarbunga is the most active and last erupted in 2014 releasing two cubic kilometres of lava.
Volcanologist David Pyle, of Oxford University, says a repeat of the ash cloud chaos is most likely to be caused by Hekla or Katla.
“The Eyjafjalljokull eruption in Iceland in 2010 wasn't a very big eruption, but it produced a lot of fine ash, over several weeks,” he said.
"The same thing could happen again - with the right combination of eruption size (not too big, not too small), and weather systems.”
Europe could, however, escape a repeat of the air travel disruption if the eruption is high enough.
“It is likely that future explosive eruptions from Icelandic volcanoes like Katla or Hekla will inject volcanic ash high enough in the atmosphere for it to get caught up in the polar vortex, and blown across Scandinavia, Greenland and the Arctic Ocean,” he said.