Letter from Iceland #31
The "formidable geology" edition
Góðan daginn
As I write this, a search is underway for a man who fell into a fissure in the ground in the town of Grindavík, near where all the seismic and volcanic activity has been of late.
The accident happened yesterday morning at around 10 am. Two men were part of a crew working to repair cracks in the ground (as you may recall, the town was evacuated in November during major earthquake activity, during which massive cracks split the ground open), and one of them went to fetch something. When he returned a few minutes later a deep fissure had appeared in the ground and his colleague was missing. It appears that the ground gave way under the weight of the heavy machinery that was being used, and the man fell into the fissure that opened up.
Rescue efforts were immediately set in motion. The equipment that the man had been using was found in the fissure, but he remained missing.
It has now been more than 30 hours and he has not been found. This country’s most skilled rescue experts are at the scene and they are working around the clock, but conditions are horribly difficult. The fissure, it turns out, is around 20 metres deep (around 65 feet) and there is water at the bottom that is also several metres deep. The fissure is moreover narrow at the top, but widens the further down it goes. Rescue workers are rappelling down there but it is very dangerous. I am sure you can imagine the risks of descending down into the ground while seismic activity is ongoing in the area.
This incident has brought home the danger of spending time and potentially living in the town of Grindavík henceforth. No one has really articulated this, but I imagine people must think about whether might be other, similar. cracks underground that could open up and swallow people, or even whole buildings.
Yesterday the mayor of Grindavík declined an interview with RÚV (national broadcaster) saying he, and other residents, were deeply shocked and traumatized by this event. I know that many people were hoping they could go back and resume their lives in the town now that the volcano that initially threatened it has blown. Also, they had made great headway on making protective barriers around the town in the event that another eruption happens just north of there.
I suppose the implications of this tragic event are now sinking in: that no one will be safe in Grindavík in the foreseeable (or even unforeseeable) future.
In the last post I ran a little survey (still ongoing) about what people would most like to see on this site, and as yet most people have voted to hear about what daily life in Iceland is like. This, unfortunately, is one of the realities of living on an island with a formidable geology and a unpredictable climate. Iceland’s nature is not to be trifled with. It is, simply, much bigger and more powerful than we are.
Meanwhile, our thoughts are with the family of the man who is missing, the search that is underway, and the brave souls who have vowed to keep searching until he is found. ❤️🙏
Ordinarily I would have posted my weekly Little Book of Icelandic installment on this day, possibly even tucked it behind a paywall at the end of a public post, but that does not seem appropriate to do, given what I wrote about above. That post will go out separately to paid subscribers in the next couple of days.
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ISAR is awesome. That this is tragic is a given. I have no words.
So sorry to read this. This highlights the dangers in our natural world and that we (tourists visiting) should respect the directions Icelanders post and tell us. Your beautiful country comes with dangers. My heart goes out to the crew and the town of Grindavik. I have been there and on that peninsula where soil bubbles from heat and winds almost blew me over. A beautiful corner of the world.