REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Iceland closed its main international airport Sunday as a volcanic eruption sent a plume of ash, smoke and 12 miles (20 km) of steam into the air.
Operator of the airport traffic control and air said ISAVIA Keflavik airport was closed at 0830 GMT (4: 30 pm EDT), and no flight was taking off or landing.
Hjordis Gudmundsdottir spokesman said the ash plume was covering the Iceland, but "the good news is that it leads not to Europe."
She said that the ashes blew rather West to Greenland.
She said officials were investigating whether other airports of the Iceland could take linked Keflavik flights.
Transatlantic flights were diverted from the Iceland, and no there was no sign that the eruption would cause widespread travel interruption triggered year last by ash from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.
In April 2010, officials closed the air space of the continent for five days, fearing that the ash could affect turbojet. Some 10 million travellers were blocked.
The Grimsvotn volcano under the Vatnaj?kull glacier uninhabited, began erupting Saturday for the first time since 2004.
Pall Einarsson, Geophysicist at the University of Iceland, said last year's eruption was a rare event and Grimsvotn would probably much less effect on international air traffic.
"The ash in Eyjafjallajokull was persistent or consistent and fine grain," said Einarsson. "The ash in Grimsvotn are more coarse and not more likely to cause danger, it falls to the ground more quickly and remain so long in the air as in the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull.
Sparsely populated Iceland is one of the most volcanic active countries and eruptions are frequent.
Eruptions often cause local flooding from melting of glacial ice, but rarely cause deaths. Police closed a main road near the volcano Sunday heavy ash fall.
Also, the Grimsvotn volcano erupted in 1996 and 1998, 1993. Eruptions lasted from one day to several weeks.
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