Flooding Feared As Volcano Melts Glacier

A volcano erupting under Europe’s largest glacier sent plumes of steam and ash up to 33,000 feet into the sky Saturday, and engineers fear flooding from molten rock melting the glacier.

The molten rock was spewing from a 5-mile fissure, melting ice and pouring water into a craterlike basin underneath called the Grimsvotn Caldera, said Pall Imsland, a geologist at the University of Iceland.

“It has been filling up in the last days and is now filled to critical level and should start to flow out at any time now,” he said.

Engineers have strengthened trenches and are prepared to cut passes through a road to divert the possible flow of water over a nearby plain, Imsland said.