© ReutersA plane flies past smoke plume from the eruption of the Grimsvotn volcano, under the Vatnajokull glacier in southeast Iceland.
Reykjavik - Activity at Iceland's erupting volcano has slowed significantly and its ash plume, which has dropped to a fraction of its 20 kilometre peak, could disappear by the weekend, experts said on Tuesday.
The plume of ash from Grimsvotn, located in the southeast of Iceland at the heart of its largest glacier, Vatnajoekull, had fallen to two kilometers on Tuesday evening, according to an Icelandic crisis management official.
The column "is decreasing now and the height of the plume is around two kilometers so it's dramatically decreased," Thorir Hrafnsson, a spokesman for Iceland's crisis management agency, told AFP.
"If it behaves like earlier eruptions, hopefully it will be over by the weekend," he said, while stressing "it's very hard to guess."
At an altitude of just two kilometres, the plume "will not be dangerous for air traffic," Hrafnsson said, acknowledging that ash still in the air from the initial blast could continue to cause problems.
