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      LONDON (AP) - Volcanic ash blanketed parts of rural Iceland on
Friday and left a widening arc of grounded aircraft across Europe,
as thousands of planes stayed on the tarmac to avoid the hazardous
cloud. Travel chaos engulfed major European cities and the U.N.
warned of possible health risks from falling ash.


      Anxious Polish officials fretted that the ash cloud could
threaten the arrival of world leaders for Sunday's state funeral of
President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, in the southern city
of Krakow. So far, President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are among those coming
and no one has cancelled. Kacyznski's family insisted they wanted
the funeral to go forward on Sunday.

      Eurocontrol, the European air traffic agency, said the
disruptions that upended travel in Europe and reverberated
throughout the world Thursday were even worse on Friday, with only
11,000 flights expected to operate instead of the usual 28,000. It
said delays will continue into Saturday as the ash cloud moves
south and east.

      Travelers jammed train stations and hotels in key European
cities. Rose Teunissen, a spokeswoman for Dutch train company NS
Hispeed, said extra trains were put on and lines to buy train
tickets at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport were so long the company
was handing out free coffee.


      Thalys, a high-speed joint venture of the French, Belgian and
German rail companies, was allowing passengers to buy tickets even
if the trains were fully booked.

      "We think we can help a lot of passengers get closer to their
final destinations," said Thalys spokeswoman Patricia Baars.

      Aviation experts said it was among the worst disruptions Europe
has ever seen.


      "We don't have many volcanoes in Europe," said David Learmount
of Flight International, an editor at the aviation publication.
"This one is right out there on the extreme edge of what you would
consider Europe - but the wind was blowing in the wrong
direction."

      Ice chunks the size of houses tumbled down from a volcano
beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier Thursday, as hot gases melted the ice. The volcano began
erupting Wednesday for the second time in less than a month.

      As torrents of water roared down the steep slopes of the
volcano, about 40 people nearby were evacuated because of flash
floods, which washed away chunks of the country's main ring road.
More floods from melting waters are expected as long as the volcano
keeps erupting, said Rognvaldur Olafsson of the Civil Protection
Department.


      The ash cloud, drifting between 20,000 to 30,000 feet (6,000 to
9,000 meters) high and invisible from the ground, left tens of
thousands of travelers stranded around the globe and blocked the
main air flight path between the U.S. east coast and Europe.

      Fearing that microscopic particles of highly abrasive ash could
endanger passengers by causing aircraft engines to fail,
authorities shut down air space over Britain, Ireland, France,
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Belgium. That halted flights
at Europe's two busiest airports - Heathrow in London and Charles
de Gaulle airport in Paris - as well as dozens of other airports,
25 in France alone.


      As the cloud moved east, flights were halted Friday at Frankfurt
airport, Europe's third-busiest terminal, and at 10 other German
airports including Duesseldorf, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne. No
flights were allowed either at the Ramstein Air Base, a key U.S.
military hub in southwestern Germany.

      Only about 120 trans-Atlantic flights reached European airports
Friday morning, compared to 300 on a normal day, said Eurocontrol's
Evans. About 60 flights between Asia and Europe were canceled.

      The U.S. Geological Survey said about 100 aircraft have run into
volcanic ash from 1983 to 2000, sometimes losing power in their
engines, but there have been no fatal incidents. Still, authorities
are very wary, because ash cannot be detected by a plane's normal
weather radar.


      Air space restrictions were lifted or imposed or extended as the
cloud moved east and south. Aviation authorities in Ireland
reopened airports in Dublin and Cork and France allowed some planes
to land at Paris' three airports during a four-hour window Friday
afternoon.

      Sweden and Norway declared skies in the far north to be safe
again for travel even as flights in both capitals - Stockholm and
Oslo - were still on a lockdown. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens
Stoltenberg, who was in New York, managed to get a flight to
Madrid, but aides said they were still not sure when or how he
would get back to Norway.

      Slovakia closed its airspace and Poland expanded its no-fly zone
Friday to most of the country, excluding the southern cities of
Krakow and Rzeszow. Belgium extended its flight restrictions until
late Saturday morning.

      NATS, the private company that controls British air space, said
the air over England would remain closed at least until 1 a.m.
Saturday (0000 GMT, 8 p.m. EDT Friday) but some international
flights were allowed into and out of Northern Ireland and western
Scotland.


      Britain's Meteorological Office said the wind was expected to
blow form the north, which would bring further ash across parts of
Britain. Small amounts of ash settled in Iceland, northern Scotland
and Norway.

      Professor Jon Davidson of the Department of Earth Sciences at
Durham University in England said the dispersal of the cloud is
dependent on the weather. The cloud can be blown elsewhere, the ash
could all fall to Earth, or the ash particles spread and become
diluted, no longer posing a threat to aircraft, he said.

      The World Health Organization in Geneva said the ash cloud
mostly remained high in the atmosphere on Friday, but it could pose
a health risk if particles reached the ground. It advised Europeans
to try to stay indoors if the ash fell, because inhaling the
particles can cause respiratory problems, especially for those
suffering from asthma and respiratory diseases.

      The volcano caused ministers and officials from at least 12
countries to miss the start of a European Union finance ministers
meeting in Madrid.

      Iceland, a nation of 320,000 people, sits on a large volcanic
hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge, and has a history of
devastating eruptions. One of the worst was the 1783 eruption of
the Laki volcano, which spewed a toxic cloud over Europe with
devastating consequences.

      Associated Press Writers Jill Lawless in London, Karl Ritter and
Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm, Melissa Eddy and Verena
Schmitt-Roschmann in Berlin, Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Bradley
Klapper and Frank Jordans in Geneva and Ian MacDougall in Oslo
contributed to this report.
      

Gallery

Iceland volcano ash continues to snarl worldwide traffic

Iceland's volcanic ash halts flights across Europe

Disasters

Volcanic ash blanketed parts of rural Iceland on
Friday and left a widening arc of grounded aircraft across Europe,
as thousands of planes stayed on the tarmac to avoid the hazardous
cloud. Travel chaos engulfed major European cities and the U.N.
warned of possible health risks from falling ash.

Flight disruptions in Europe get even worse

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