"There is no panic," said Kjartan Thorkelsson, the local police chief in the nearby village of Hvolsvollur.

For the second time in two days residents quit their homes briefly Thursday evening to avoid floodwater from the melting Eyjafjallajokull glacier covering the volcano that began erupting early Wednesday.

Thanks to regular practice the evacuations had gone off without a hitch, Thorkelsson told AFP.

"People know what to do, and they know we will tell them what is happening," he said, pointing out that police generally give a two-hour warning by phone or text message to all residents before an evacuation.

Gudny Halla Gunnlaugsdottir, a farmer who lives just 15 kilometres (nine miles) southwest of the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, took the repeated evacuations in stride.

"There hasn't been any damage to our belongings," she told AFP, pointing out that protective walls built in the 1920 and withstood the heavy floods.

"They knew how to build them in those days," she said.

People and animals had escaped harm so far in the flooded rural area, some 125 kilometres (75 miles) east of Reykjavik, but a more serious problem could be the downfall of volcanic ash, which experts on Friday warned could jeopardise the safety of drinking water.

"It is important to prevent the ash from reaching water supplies, both for public and animal health reasons and for safe milk production," Halldor Runolfsson of the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority told AFP.

Iceland's second volcano eruption in less than a month has sent plumes of ash and smoke billowing more than 20,000 feet (6,000 metres) into the sky.

In some areas around the Eyjafjallajokull glacier the ground was thick with toxic ash, which could cause "respiratory effects and eye irritation," the Civil Emergency Authorities said.

"Those in affected areas should use a mask when outside and use protective goggles," it stressed, pointing out that "the ash that is falling is composed of fine and course particles."

Teachers in the small village of Vik, which became completely isolated when floods ripped up large swaths of road, taught the youngest children how to wear gas masks, public broadcaster RUV reported.

The massive ash cloud which is gradually sweeping across Europe and forcing the continent's biggest air travel shutdown since World War II contains large concentrations of fluoride, which "is considered to be of great danger for animals," according to the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland.

On the bright side, the ash was being carried in a "wet" eruption cloud, meaning it is rich in steam which absorbs a lot of pollution, according to the institute.

More pollution would be expected if the ashfall came from a dry eruption cloud, it added.

Experts meanwhile said Friday that there was some indication the eruption could be tapering off.

"GPS measurements show that the pressure is decreasing in the volcano itself ... which could indicate that the eruption is decreasing," volcanologist Armann Hoeskuldsson of the University of Iceland told AFP.

Geophysicist Sigrun Hreinsdottir also said two GPS stations in the vicinity of the Eyjafjallajokull glacier indicated magma pressure inside the volcano was decreasing.

"The flow (of magma) leaving the volcano is much more important than what is coming into it, which indicates the magma pressure is decreasing," she said.

But she stressed the instruments could not indicate when the eruption would end.

Police chief Thorkelsson agreed, pointing out that "the last time this volcano erupted (in the 1820s), the eruption lasted 14-15 months."

Last month, the first eruption at the Eyjafjallajokull glacier forced 600 people from their homes in the same area.

That eruption, in the Fimmvorduhals volcano next to the glacier, was the first in the area since 1823 and Iceland's first since 2004, gushed lava for more than three weeks and ended Tuesday, hours before the second one occurred.

Experts have cautioned that eruptions near Eyjafjallajokull tend to set off the larger Katla volcano, which is considered one of the most dangerous volcanos in Iceland, and which last erupted in 1918.

So far there is no sign of activity at Katla, but geologists point out that an eruption there often follows a year or two after the smaller blasts at Eyjafjallajokull.

If Katla were to blow, farmer Gunnlaugsdottir said she might lose some of her cool.

"I don't think its a matter of wether it will erupt, but a matter when," she said.

"And then we will have a real problem on our hands."

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