Several flights between Europe and Asia were cancelled due to the ashes generated from the volcano near Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland. The ash volcano paralyzed European airports.

Within a month, this is the second time that the volcano has erupted. As a result of volcano, sky is filled with ice, smoke, ash and steam. Hundreds of passengers were left behind due to their flight cancellations.

I saw the images of Eyjafjallajokull ash volcano today on boston website.Instead of embedding images here, I am providing the link of boston website where you can see the disruption caused by this volcano. The site has collected total 18 images.

This volcano caused massive disruption to the air traffic between northern and western Europe for around 6 days in April of 2010. Then again problems came in month of May. Officially the government declared the end of it in Oct’10 when snow stopped melting.

It affected around 20 major countries of the world. They had to cancel their air-flights resulting in the cancellation of trips of thousands of passengers.

The seismic activity was started in the ending days of 2009 year and it increased gradually. On 20 March 2010, a very small eruption took place, which had an Explosivity Index of 1. On 14 April, it entered into the second phase and created an ash cloud. The volume of ash reached to a height of 9 kms with an Index of 4.

Further, dry ash began to settle on the grounds. The ashes mixed in the air and it became very difficult to analyze it with cameras.

University of Iceland Institute of Earth Sciences scientist Armann Höskuldsson declared in Oct 2010 that the massive eruption is over and he also warned that the area is still geothermally active and another eruption can occur again.

The air disruption was believed to be the highest since Second World War.

What made this volcanic activity so disruptive to air travel was the combination of the following four factors

^{Factors increasing Disruptive Capability of Volcano}

1.          The location is directly under jet stream.

2.         The volcano was so powerful that it could inject the ash into the jet stream directly.

3.         The stable direction of the jet stream during eruption’s second phase time.

4.         The lava cooled fastly, which created an ash-cloud.

5.          The explosive power was increased as a result of water vaporizing.

Iceland Volcanic Eruption Photos

Check images of Volcanic Eruption in Iceland