Grindavík residents face uncertain future after volcano erupts again | Hacker News Reader

Grindavík residents face uncertain future after volcano erupts again

theguardian.com

28 pointstosh24 comments

Icelandic Red Cross have setup donations for Grindavik residents, the majority of whom are in temporary accommodation and have been unable to rescue anything but small possessions.

If you've visited Iceland before and enjoyed your trip, or otherwise have the means to do so, please consider donating:

https://www.raudikrossinn.is/styrkja/stakur-styrkur/

Iceland isn't a poor country. I'd be very surprised if the state doesn't have the means to take care properly of its citizens in an event like this, in particular because it's not that unexpected. If not, another pots and pans revolution is needed...

Unfortunately, it appears the peninsula has entered a new eruptive era after eight hundred years of inactivity. The last episode lasted 30 years. That it is hard to predict is shown by the fact that they just opened the Blue Lagoon two days before this eruption, and the same thing happened in December. Both times they thought the danger had passed just before it actually erupted.

[dupe]

More talk and helpful links here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38989685

Maybe I'm risk averse, but if a volcano erupted where I live, not just once, but twice, I would leave.

Actually I wouldn't, because I would have left THE FIRST TIME THE VOLCANO SEEMED THREATENING!

History is ripe with government officials pretending "all is good" until the volcano kills everyone:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii and more recently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Pierre,_Martinique

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1902_eruption_of_Mount_Pel%C3%... :

"The newspapers still claimed the city was safe. News of the Soufrière volcano erupting on the nearby island of Saint Vincent reassured the people, who believed it was a sign that Mount Pelée's internal pressure was being relieved. However, Captain Marina Leboffe, of the barque Orsolina, left the harbor with only half of his sugar cargo loaded, despite shippers' protests, clearance being refused by port authorities, and under threat of arrest. Many other civilians were refused permission to leave town.[6] Governor Louis Mouttet and his wife stayed in the city. By the evening, Mount Pelée's tremors seemed to calm down again."

The Icelandic volcanoes are a very different kind. They create lava flows instead of explosions (except when they erupt under glaciers, but there is no glacier near Grindavik). Another example is Hawaii, where the village of Volcano is only a few miles from the crater, which has been active almost continuously for over thirty years.

This is almost completely correct. However, I have heard of one other possibility that might be a problem - a steam explosion (maar).

From what I understand, a person died falling in a crack in town earlier this week, and when they went down to investigate, they found ocean water in it. There is a possibility (albight slight) of magma finding it's way into such cracks and causing a steam explosion. Nothing on the scale of something like what happened at Hunga-Haapi earlier last year, but still a not-so-great explosion.

Just adding to your reply for anyone who is curious. The reason these volcanoes are not explosive is because the magma has low silica content, this makes it less viscous and more runny so it doesn't build up explosive pressure the same way. In the case of Hawaii and Iceland this is because it comes directly from a mantle hot spot up through thin oceanic crust. Silica is mostly found in the crust so magma like in the Cascades that melts through thicker continental plate has a lot more of it and results in Mt. St Helens style eruptions.

Iceland has had some VEI 6 eruptions in the past, meaning 10 km^3 of material (called tephra) was ejected. That's 100 times larger than the VEI 4 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanic_eruptions_in_...

Not all volcanos are the type that explode. While there are classes/type of volcano, in reality each is a bespoke situation. It would be an oversimplification to directly compare Iceland to Pompeii.

> Not all volcanos are the type that explode. While there are classes/type of volcano, in reality each is a bespoke situation. It would be an oversimplification to directly compare Iceland to Pompeii.

You're right, the volcano may not explode, but by being AN ACTIVE VOLCANO, it still has many ways to kill people...

The article pictures with the RED HOT LAVA tells me it's a bad idea to stay, but if they want to, sure!

After all, we need more dramatic wikipedia articles about a single person surviving in a city that previously housed thousands!

If the ACTIVE VOLCANO is well studied and it is known that the way that it will reduce the city from thousands of people to one is… slowly annoying them into leaving rather than exploding… it makes sense to stick around for a while and see how things go.

Most places have some kind of environmental catastrophe that can befall them. I grew up in a very stable area weather and geography wise (northeast US), so I can say with objective certainty as an outside observer to catastrophe: everywhere else on Earth has some crazy thing trying to kill the inhabitants, but they’ve just gotten used to it.

The only part of Iceland that's truly safe from volcanic activity is the westfjords, which are remote and isolated even by Icelandic standards. Vulcanism is simply a fact of life for anyone living in the country, just like earthquakes in California, or hurricanes on the Gulf Coast.

Nah, it's not that bad. Just live uphill from the volcano. Living downhill would be dumb though /s

You are certainly risk-averse compared to the Icelandic people, who have lived there for 1200 years now, long before geology was a thing. Hence, culturally, the Icelandic people are seemingly content to live under the threat of volcanoes even with no ability to predict where and when they'll happen.

The current situation is practically luxury in comparison.

Icelander here. I'd find the idea of having a tornado tearing through my back garden more scary than the idea of an volcano opening up there.

I guess it stems from the fact that one of those I know more about and how to live with, than the other. Someone from Kansas might have the inverse feeling.

Yes, exactly my point. I grew up on the Norwegian coast. Consequently, wind doesn't bother me very much. I'll even go outside in violent storm conditions without being too worried about it

After moving to the Oslo region, which has much less wind, I actually miss the wind. But there are other issues around here, like floods, getting snowed in, sub -20 temps etc. These are quite new to me and the last 2 weeks I've been quietly freaking out waiting for my pipes to explode. Seems like I've been lucky though.

Maybe I'm risk averse, but if a fault line caused a huge earthquake where I live, not just once, but twice, I would leave.

Actually I wouldn't, because I would have left THE FIRST TIME THE FAULT LINE SEEMED THREATENING!

History is ripe with government officials pretending "all is good" until the EARTHQUAKE kills everyone:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1556_Shaanxi_earthquake and more recently

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_San_Francisco_earthquake

Or should we talk about tsunamis? or hurricanes and sea-level rise in Florida? Maybe wildfires?

> Or should we talk about tsunamis? or hurricanes and sea-level rise in Florida? Maybe wildfires?

No need to, because I absolutely agree with you: there's no way I'd live near an active fault line, or in a place with a risk of tsunamis/earthquakes and other types of natural catastrophes that are naturally occuring and can't be protected against.

What do you have to say about earthquake prone zones, hurricane prone zones, flooding prone zones and so on? A pretty large chunk of the global population lives in some sort of disaster prone area, and volcanoes, outside of fictional depictions, are not that different from all those other disasters in terms of impact.

> hurricane prone zones, flooding prone zones and so on?

They should also leave, flooding is only going to get worse over the next 50 years . There is no good reason for American tax payers being forced to pay for people to live in these flood zones.

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/08/08/hidden-subs...

> They should also leave, flooding is only going to get worse over the next 50 years . There is no good reason for American tax payers to be forced to pay for people live in these flood zones.

> What do you have to say about earthquake prone zones, hurricane prone zones, flooding prone zones and so on?

There's no way I'd be living there, so I'd say the exact same thing!

That puts so much of the world off limits, I can't really imagine being that incredibly averse to a risk lower than that of driving.

I've lived in various areas prone to each of those my entire life with no issue...

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