Flooding Awaited as Volcano Melts Glacier

With a volcano melting Europe’s largest glacier, workers strengthened nearby roads and bridges to prepare for mass flooding. Molten rock from the Loki volcano has melted ice and snow to create 70,000 cubic feet of water, which is gathering in a crater underneath the 2,000-foot-thick glacier. Flights have been diverted from the area around the volcano along Iceland’s southeastern coast, 185 miles east of Reykjavik, the capital. The eruption itself, which began the night of Sept. 29, has not directly endangered people; the region of sparsely populated Iceland is uninhabited. The eruption didn’t break through the Vatnajokull glacier until Wednesday morning.