Volcanic ash reaches Morocco

Rabat, 12 May-(ANA)-A cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland has forced airports in North Africa to shut for the first time, as well as hitting air travel in southern Spain.

Morocco halted flights from Rabat, Casablanca and at least three other airports while, at one point, seven airports in Spain were closed.

Turkey banned flights over its north-west for four hours from 1200 GMT.

Ash said to be drifting towards south-east France is at high altitude and is not expected to affect airports there.

Eurocontrol, the European air traffic control agency, said it expected 29,000 flights to take to the air on Tuesday, which is close to normal for this time of year. On Monday, there were 29,155 flights.

Icelandic volcanologists say the ash over Europe this week is left over from previous weeks and can travel around in the atmosphere carried by winds.

"We really don't know when it will settle down," said Bjorn Oddsson of the Institute of Earth Sciences at Iceland University.

"So even if the volcano stops, we can look at this problem for a couple of weeks after," he was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.(ANA)

FA/ANA/12 May 2010--------