Iceland's government has evacuated tourists due to the rising threat of an eruption by the Barðarbunga stratovolcano standing 2,009 meters above sea level.

Some 300 tourists have been evacuated and the country's emergency services placed on alert status, said Iceland's Civil Protection Authority.

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The area around the volcano is uninhabited. Only local camping sites and trekking cabins for tourists are to be found in the vicinity of the volcanoes.

While the volcano isn't expected to be a threat to local communities around the region directly if it erupts, the greater danger lies in the flooding an eruption might cause.

If the Barðarbunga volcano erupts, it could melt the Vatnajökull ice cap buried underneath it, erasing roads and affecting tourist sites such as waterfalls downstream.

Moreover, an eruption could be large enough to affect air traffic over Northern Europe and the Northern Atlantic, an event that occurred when the Eyjafjoell volcano erupted in April 2010.

Icelandic officials were first notified of increasing magma activity at Barðarbunga on August 16, when people were shaken by a swarm of intense earthquakes.

The Icelandic Met Office (IMO) reported some 3000 earthquakes, each with magnitudes of less than 3, striking the area.

These earthquakes were a signal that magma within the volcano is moving along underground rocks. Earthquake activity has moved northeast by about one kilometer since Saturday.

While the IMO doesn't see a further rise in magma levels, they posit there could be other reasons why the magma is moving.

Scientists think the magma might be forming a dyke and GPS measurements support this theory.

The possibility of magma breaking rock and triggering an eruption is still not certain. Magma could solidify underground and never reach the surface.

The worse case scenario would be for magma to pour out of the volcano and reach Iceland's power plants.

The stratovolcano, which is the second highest mountain on Iceland, is located in the center of the island.

TagsBarðarbunga, Iceland, Volcano