Tourists are continuing to continue to risk their lives in order to get spectacular footage after several were spotted grilling food on the hardened lava, and then cooling down afterwards with soft drinks.
The shocking scenes were reported by locals and other tourists despite the huge backlash over a recent scandal in which an American tourist stood screaming as molten lava flooded towards him, before turning and running at the last minute, and then later posting snaps of himself in front of the wall of advancing lava.
The much-criticised American tourist, who later came clean about his visit to the spewing volcano, was spotted by a webcam belonging to the media company Iceland Monitor.
In one post on the ‘Volcanoes’ Facebook group, the man identified as Vincent Van Reynolds said: “Hello everyone. I am that crazy man from the Iceland news who went up the cone, only to run down when a torrent of lava was unleashed. Pile on the hate!”
The footage shows him visiting the lava field at Geldingadalir before the spewing lava apparently gets too close and he has to turn and run.
According to local media, the tourist who lives in Denver in Colorado tried to approach the crater but failed after it was completely surrounded by lava flows.
Van Reynolds, who has a bachelor’s degree in geology, told the news site Visir that his visit was not as perilous as it may have seemed.
Picture shows lava taken by Sebastien Mouyna,36, in Iceland. 
French Sebastien Mouyna films a volcanic site in Iceland.
The risk-taking tourists are all among the visitors to the Fagradalsfjall eruption site in Geldingadalir in Iceland which after lying dormant for 800 years, finally erupted back into life on March 19 this year.
The volcano has also shown no signs of slowing down with the lava field continuing to expand, with the molten rock heated to 1250 Centigrade flowing over the landscape before slowly cooling.
Experts have warned that despite the formation of a crust, molten lava is still flowing underneath and people who venture onto the surface risk their lives.
Local Matthías Karlsson had advised him to leave the surface, but they had ignored him and he said it’s not the first time this has happened. He said he even saw a man with his child on his back walking over the lava field.
French tourist Sébastien Mouyna, 36, from Lyon in France said that not all visitors were behaving badly.
But he also admitted that although it was crazy for anybody to walk on the lava he had still seen people doing it.
He said: “Just being near the lava is dangerous, and I certainly would not step on it. I stayed on the slope to get my images where I was walking on grass and stones and was constantly around 4 m away. So for me, there was no risk of the crust breaking.”
Sébastien, who shared his own footage on his Facebook, Instagram and YouTube channel, which operates under the name Sebou_du__monde, added that even though he was not an expert on volcanoes, he knew that you should never walk on cold lava because the hot lava is usually flowing underneath.
He said the behaviour of others was all the more shocking because the crust they were walking on was still smoking, and even from where he was you could feel the “terrific heat”.
He added that there was, however, no restrictions on where people could go, probably because the lava field was advancing so quickly, and occasionally parts of the walk were closed because of the gas.
American Vincent Van Reynolds who risked his life at Icelands volcano. 
American Vincent Van Reynolds who risked his life at Icelands volcano.
To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below.
Story By: Arian Movileanu, Sub-Editor: James King, Agency: Newsflash
The Ananova page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.
