Letter from Iceland #33

The "mass relocation" edition

Halló!

As you may know, another eruption has come and gone since I wrote my last Letter.

Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash. NB this is the town of Grindavík prior to the eruption. The lava flowed across this road and closed it this past weekend.

It started on Sunday morning, just before 8 am, just north of the town of Grindavík. This was not a complete surprise—after all, there have been regular eruptions in the area over the last three years, the most recent one on December 18, and there had been ongoing swelling in the ground, indicating a subterranean influx of magma.

So there was a perpetual state of uncertainty in the area. Nevertheless, a number of people had returned to Grindavík, and there were around 90 homes occupied when a sudden intensification in seismic activity began around 3 am. The town was quickly evacuated and the eruption began some four hours later.

Work had been underway to erect protective barriers north of the town, but alas, the fissure that opened up did so on both sides of those barriers. In the social media post I wrote on Sunday I mentioned that the barriers had been useless, but as the day wore on this was disproven, as they did manage to deflect a large portion of the lava away from the town. Part of that lava flowed over the main road to Grindavík, so the town is now inaccessible via that route.

There was a nail-biting moment on Sunday when workmen rushed in to get the heavy machinery used to erect the barriers away from the oozing lava just a few metres away. The heat was so intense that glass in at least one of the bulldozers cracked. Those intrepid souls drove the vehicles to safety, and then immediately got to work on the barriers again.

Photo by Kjartan Þorbjörnsson (Golli), borrowed from here.

Later that day, around noon, another fissure opened up, that one just a short distance from nearby homes. The eruption from that fissure was short-lived, only around 24 hours, but by the time it ended it had already destroyed three houses.

When the town was evacuated in the middle of the night, some 240 sheep were left behind, and owners were not permitted to back to get them. We animal lovers were horrified and outraged, especially since people were allowed in to salvage the machines, and media personnel to take pictures and report from the scene. (Of course there was the rather pressing question as to why people had brought their animals back after the evacuations in November. The explanation was that when residents went back to their homes in Grindavík the animals came with them, so their owners could, well, look after them. I get it—it’s not an easy task moving to a different location with a bunch of sheep, and if you were expecting to move back to Grindavík permanently, it makes sense you would bring your animals. Now, whether or not the idea they could move back permanently was realistic in the first place is open to debate.)

But thankfully the owners of the animals were allowed to go into the town today and move them out of harm’s way—I have not yet seen any reports whether they were all fetched, but the intention was for that to be done today. 🙏

So what happens now?

As this is written, some 60 hours after the latest eruption began, both fissures have stopped erupting, yet scientists say it is premature to announce its end since there is still seismic activity, meaning that magma is still on the move underground, and new fissures may open at any time.