Huge volcanic ash cloud closes airports

(News Terupdate) - Many airports were shut and flights grounded across the United Kingdom and Norway Thursday because of ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland, airport authorities said.

A huge plume of ash was moving across the Atlantic after the eruption of a volcano beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier early Wednesday.

All flights from London's Heathrow and Stansted airport north of the city would be suspended from 12 p.m. (7 a.m. EST), according to the British Airport Authority (BAA). Passengers were advised not to travel to the airport.

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Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Glasgow airports in Scotland were closed, along with Newcastle airport in northern England. Manchester airport said it expected flights to be disrupted until 1 p.m. (8 a.m. ET).

Norway's aviation authority AVINOR closed roughly the northern half of the country's airspace on Wednesday evening, from Trondheim to the north.

Flights to and from Oslo Airport were cancelled from 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. EST, according to Oslo Airport authorities. Passengers were advised to check their airline for further information.

Volcanic ash started spewing into the atmosphere after the volcano's eruption early Wednesday, the latest in a series which began on March 20.

It blew a hole in the Eyjafjallajokull glacier prompting officials to evacuate hundreds of people due to the risk of flooding.

"The volcano is under the glacier, and it's melting parts of the glacier," said Rognvaldur Olafsson, chief inspector at Iceland's Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management. "The rivers will rise and potentially make some damage."

iReporter captures footage of eruption

The glacier is the sixth-biggest in Iceland and is just to the west of the bigger glacier, Myrdalsjokull. It is about 100 miles (160 km) east of the capital, Reykjavik.

Ben Blake, a postgraduate student from London, was booked on a 6 a.m. flight from Gatwick to Istanbul, Turkey, with a group of 19 others but was told the flight was canceled. The group booked another flight from another airport -- Heathrow -- but were still unsure whether the flight would go.

"We got here and it's not too bad -- flights are not being canceled yet," Blake told CNN from Heathrow.

He said Gatwick was a "mess" with lots of flights canceled and passengers not knowing where to go, but Heathrow still appeared normal.

The sky above Heathrow was blue with patches of cloud and no visual evidence of volcanic ash, Blake said.

The ash also caused delays in some flights leaving the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

"There are some ground holds in place for flights that would be going through Icelandic air space due to volcanic ash," FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said Wednesday night.

Source : CNN

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