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AIRCRAFT

Southern Sweden faces airspace shutdown

A new airspace shutdown has been announced for southern parts of Sweden from 8pm on Monday.

Southern Sweden faces airspace shutdown

Stockholm-Arlanda Airport is set to remain open, although the Civil Aviation Authority (Luftfartsverket – LFV) could be forced to reassess the situation as a vast cloud of volcanic ash drifts towards Norway from Iceland.

LFV said all airspace south of a line running from Strömstad in the west to Nyköping in the east would be affected by the shutdown.

Airspace north of the line will remain open, while planes flying at high altitude will be permitted to cross the line.

Landvetter airport in Gothenburg opened for business on Monday but appears likely to close again in line with LFV’s new guidelines.

“Arlanda has been open since 8am only to traffic north and west,” airport spokesman Per Froberg told AFP. “The airport is open and remains open until further notice.”

A cargo plane from the United States landed early Monday and two flights were set to leave later for Chicago and New York, he said.

Scandinavian airline SAS said a number of its cross-Atlantic flights scheduled to land in Copenhagen would be diverted to Oslo, while flights to Stockholm would likely land as scheduled.

In Denmark, aviation authorities on Monday reopened airspace to flights above 35,500 feet (10,670 metres), but said restrictions on flights below the limit would remain in place until at least 2am on Tuesday.

Finland, where all commercial flights had been grounded since Thursday, meanwhile temporarily opened airports in the cities of Turku and Tampere between 12 and 6pm.

The country’s flag carrier Finnair said a flight from New York would likely land in the western city of Turku on Monday afternoon.

Airport operator Finavia however said forecasts indicated the ash cloud would remain above southern Finland, meaning the main Helsinki-Vantaa airport would remain closed to traffic.

Due to wind conditions blowing the ash cloud away from its skies, Iceland has left its airports and airspace open since the Eyjafjöll volcano began erupting early last Wednesday bringing chaos to European travel.

“There is no problem flying in and out of Iceland, and to be honest we see no indications that that will change in the next days,” Iceland air spokesman Gudjon Arngrimsson told AFP.

He said the company ran five extra flights to the central Norwegian city of Trondheim on Sunday to help stranded passengers, mostly en route from North America to Europe, leave Iceland.

“Today we’re flying to Oslo, Tampere and Stockholm,” he said.

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LA PALMA

3,000 people in Spain’s La Palma forced indoors as lava reaches sea

Around 3,000 people were ordered to remain indoors on the Canary island of La Palma on Monday as lava from an erupting volcano reached the sea, risking the release of toxic gas.

3,000 people in Spain's La Palma forced indoors as lava reaches sea
The lava flow produced by the Cumbre Vieja volcano has reached the sea before. (Photo by JORGE GUERRERO / AFP)

The Canary Islands Volcanic Emergency Plan (Pevolca) “ordered the confinement” of residents of coastal towns and villages near where the lava cascaded into the sea, sending large plumes of white smoke into the air, local emergency services said on Twitter.

The order was given due to “the possible release of gases that are harmful to health,” it added.

The order affects “around 3,000” people on the island, Miguel Angel Morcuende, technical director of Pevolca, told a news conference.

This is the third time that a lava flow has reached the Atlantic Ocean since the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the south of the island erupted on September 19th, covering large areas with ash.

All flights to and from La Palma’s airport were cancelled on Monday because of the ash, the third straight day that air travel has been disrupted.

And for the first time since the eruption started, local authorities advised residents of La Palma’s capital, Santa Cruz de La Palma in the east, to use high-filtration FFP2 face masks to protect themselves from emissions of dioxide and sulphur.

Most of the island, which is home to around 85,000 people, is so far unaffected by the eruption.

But parts of the western side where lava flows have slowly made their way to the sea face an uncertain future.

The molten rock has covered 1,065 hectares (2,630 acres) and destroyed nearly 1,500 buildings, according to Copernicus, the European Union’s satellite monitoring service.

Lava has destroyed schools, churches, health centres and irrigation infrastructure for the island’s banana plantations — a key source of jobs — as well as hundreds of homes.

Provisional damage was estimated on Friday at nearly €900 million ($1 billion), according to the regional government.

The island of La Palma, part of the Canary Islands archipelago off northwestern Africa, is experiencing its third eruption in a century, with
previous ones in 1949 and 1971.

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