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Like most countries that have active volcanoes Iceland has a net work of sensitive electronic instruments that measure changes in the environment around known active volcanoes and look for new ones. These measure the seismic activity, temperature and gas levels. At certain levels this gives warning that the volcano is going to blow.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/ This is the home page of the organization that monitors volcanoes and earthquakes in New Zealand. Have a look around as they have a lot of useful information. Iceland and New Zealand work closely with Japan in this scientific field being three of the most volcanically active countries in the world.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/volcano/ This page is specifically about volcanoes.

As far as civil response goes you can only minimize the effects of a volcanic eruption by warning people. Building houses to deal with the conditions like steep roofs that don't allow ash to settle on them and methods of shutting out the dust. Other than an evacuation plan there is little you can do to control or stop volcanoes if they are going to blow then that is what they will do.

The people in the area around Eyjafjallajökull panicked

and other people in southern Iceland, but i didn't panic because i live in a town named siglufjördur its about 500 km away from the volcano, very little ash came to my town

Joker out

They have petitioned the UN to let them name everything. No one's objected so far. Every time a volcano goes off, it is the coolest name in the world, every time.

The only country in the world who actually spells names in a way that actually represents the level of sheer destruction it can cause.

If I saw Eyjafjallajökull coming at me, I'd run away. Or maybe call Dohvakiin. One of the two.