REYKJAVIK: The worst of the eruption at Iceland's Grimsvoetn ash volcano is over and authorities can now focus on cleaning up the areas covered in ash, Icelandic Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir said in a statement published Wednesday.
"The worst is over, and now the clean-up can begin," said Sigurdardottir, who on Tuesday visited the ash-covered area near the volcano, located at the heart of the country's biggest glacier, Vatnajeokull.
The prime minister said it looked like "problems arising in our neighbouring countries as a result of volcanic ash should be resolved quickly."
But while air travel was expected to soon be back to normal, the some 1,000 people living in the vicinity of the volcano were still facing challenging times, Sigurdardottir said.
"Iceland has been struck by a natural disaster, and the government is already preparing a number of measures to assist residents, clean up the areas affected by volcanic ash, and return farming and other economic pursuits to normal," she said.
When Grimsvoetn rumbled to life on Saturday it sent a plume of ash and smoke as high as 20 kilometres (12 miles) into the sky, raising fears of a repeat of last year's eruption of the smaller Eyjafjoell volcano which led to the biggest global airspace shutdown since World War II, grounding more than 100,000 flights.
Grimsvoetn has so far caused far less trouble, although it did lead to around 500 flight cancellations in Britain on Tuesday, the brief closure of airspace above northern Germany and an expected 700 flight cancellations Wednesday.
But experts said Wednesday the volcano seemed to have stopped erupting and the plume, which has dropped rapidly in recent days, was almost gone, meaning the recent flight disruptions were being caused by old ash spewed out soon after the blast began.
Authorities and scientists were however on Wednesday reluctant to say that the eruption was completely over.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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