1y ago

State of emergency declared in Iceland after volcanic eruption

A state of emergency has been declared in Iceland after lava from a volcanic eruption damaged key hot water pipes.

Thousands of people in the Reykjanes Peninsula have been urged to limit their hot water and electricity use as the pipes could take days to fix.

There are concerns that other crucial pipelines close to the Svartsengi power station could be affected if the lava flow does not ease soon.

It is the third such eruption on the peninsula since December.

18 comments

I mean...im glad the country isn't being destroyed by a volcano but after that headline finding out its because of busted water pipes is a little anticlimactic
- It's Iceland in the dead of winter, it's -11°C and the heat pipes are severed, it's an actual emergency.
  
  lol im not saying its not. I get why they declared this an emergency.
- A lot of Iceland uses municipal hot water/heating, so this means that they may not be able to heat their houses properly. (although I don't think its that bad currently)
- A volcano also happens to be anti-climatic.
- The steam pipes provide electricity and heat. And the high temperature in Iceland today was 22°F, with a nighttime low of 15°F.
  
  -5 to -10 Celsius
Icelanders just can't catch a break :(
- Unlike their hot water pipes
I wish Iceland would calm the fuck down.
Let's see... I've got earthquakes, birds, snakes and aeroplanes but no volcanic eruptions for my card. Anyone get End Of The World As We Know It bingo from this round?
- This is the third eruption in the same place in the past two months, if 'a volcano erupts near Grindavík, Iceland' was on your bingo card it should have already been marked. And having 'any volcano erupts' on a bingo card would make the game too easy since there are about fifty volcanos erupting at any one time.
- How could you not. Still need 2 or 3 in a row to get bingo. Still need nuclear war and neither bidet and trump win or, 3 major hurricane land falls, stock market crash and ocean oil spill.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Aerial video of the area shows a new 3km-long (1.8 mile) fissure - a crack in the Earth's surface - spraying streams of lava high up into the air.
Iceland's Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management said it was trying to figure out how to guarantee the hot water supply to more than 20,000 people who have reportedly had their access disrupted.
Schools in the areas affected by the lack of hot water will also remain shut, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service (RUV) reported.
Volcanologist Dr Evgenia Ilyinskaya told the BBC that while the Svartsengi power station itself is protected to some extent by barriers that have been built around it, there are pipes providing hot water to a further 30,000 people across the peninsula that are at more immediate risk.
All of the recent eruptions in southern Iceland have involved lava pouring from fissures, rather than volcanic explosions that cause ash to be sent into the atmosphere - such as the country saw in 2011.
Dr Ilyinskaya, an associate professor of volcanology at Leeds University, said Thursday's eruption was in the same general area as one in December - meaning it is unlikely to cause more damage to the abandoned town of Grindavik.
The original article contains 575 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 64%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

18 comments