A volcano in Iceland is erupting for the 3rd time since December, spewing lava into the sky

A volcano erupts in Iceland for the third time since December, causing evacuations and threatening infrastructure.

A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted on Thursday for the third time since December, sending jets of lava into the sky and triggering the evacuation of the Blue Lagoon spa, one of the island nation's biggest tourist attractions.

The eruption began at about 0600 GMT (1 a.m. EST) along a three-kilometre (nearly two-mile) fissure northeast of Mount Sýlingarfell, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said. The site is about 4 kilometres (2½ miles) northeast of Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 people that was evacuated before a previous eruption on Dec. 18.

The Meteorological Office said that lava was flowing to the west and there was no immediate threat to Grindavik, and civil defense officials said that no one was believed to be in the town at the time of the eruption.

“They weren’t meant to be, and we don’t know about any," Víðir Reynisson, the head of Iceland’s Civil Defense, told national broadcaster RUV.

The Civil Defense agency said that lava was heading for a pipe that supplies communities on the peninsula with hot water from the Svartsengi geothermal plant. Authorities asked people to use hot water sparingly, as workers rushed to lay an underground water pipe as a backup.

The nearby Blue Lagoon thermal spa, created using excess water from the power plant, was closed when the eruption began and all the guests were safely evacuated, RUV said. A stream of steaming lava later spread across the exit road from the spa.

The Icelandic Met Office earlier this week warned of a possible eruption after monitoring a buildup of magma, or semi-molten rock, below the ground for the past three weeks. Hundreds of small earthquakes had been measured in the area since Friday, capped by a burst of intense seismic activity about 30 minutes before the latest eruption began.