Iceland's subsiding volcano ends tourism boom

Iceland’s latest volcanic eruption is coming to an end and with it the unexpected tourist boom that lifted the recession-hit country’s financial fortunes.

It says something about a country’s fortunes when an erupting volcano is greeted as good news - but Iceland has had a hard time since its banks collapsed 18 months ago, capsizing the economy and sending unemployment soaring.

Last month the Eyjafjallajokull volcano began erupting after almost 200 years of silence, threatening floods and earthquakes but drawing thousands of adventurous tourists – and their desperately needed cash – to the site where ash and red-hot lava spewed from a crater between two glaciers.

However scientists said today that the eruption is winding down.

“The volcanic activity has essentially stopped,” said Einar Kjartansson, a geophysicist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office. “I believe the eruption has ended.”

University of Iceland geologist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson said activity at the volcano had declined steeply in the last couple of days, although: “It’s too early to write its death certificate.”

Thousands of people have made the trip to the volcano, 75 miles east of Reykjavik, since the eruption began on March 20 – and Icelandic tour companies have made a small fortune taking them there, by bus, snowmobile, and even helicopter.

Drivers and hikers have caused unprecedented traffic jams in the sparsely populated rural area near the site.

“It was like a festival without the music,” said British tourist Alex Britton, 27, who recently drove to the volcano. “Or like a pilgrimage.”

Charter airline Iceland Express said its business rose by 20% since the eruption, and the Icelandic Tourist Board said 26,000 overseas visitors went to the country in March, a record for a quiet month when Iceland is still in its winter hibernation.

The volcano’s popularity has proved a problem for the authorities. Iceland’s Civil Protection Department said rescue teams have had to help up to 50 people a day down from the site, where temperatures have dipped to -17 Celsius in biting wind.

Last week two Icelandic visitors died of exposure after they became lost and their car ran out of petrol.

The Eyjafjallajokull eruption is the country’s first since 2004, and the most dramatic since Hekla, Iceland’s most active volcano, blew its top in 2000.