For the kids at the Graenuvellir kindergarten in Husavik, north Iceland, going out to play was not an option.
They were kept inside on Tuesday last week to protect them from sulfur-dioxide gases spewing from the Holuhraun lava field near the Bardarbunga volcano.
The eruption has been going for almost three months and shows no sign of stopping. Red-hot lava has spread 70km2, covering an area larger than Manhattan.
Photo: AFP
“On regular days the kids go out to play to take in the fresh air, but that’s not really possible or safe under the current conditions,” said Agusta Palsdottir, a manager at the kindergarten, which has 125 children between the ages of one and six.
Icelanders can only wait for nature to run its course as they monitor how gas clouds drift across the island, itself a product of volcanic activity. As descendants of Viking settlers 1,200 years ago, Icelanders have learned to coexist with their volcanoes and to harness their power. Yet some events have proven deadlier than others. In the late 1700s, an eruption triggered a famine that killed 25 percent of Iceland’s population.
“There’s exactly nothing you can do, aside from going inside,” said Kristjan Thor Magnusson, mayor of Nordurthing, the municipality that includes Husavik, a town of 2,200 famous for its whale watching. “People that are more sensitive than others need to avoid physical exertion outside, and try to stay inside and warm up their houses to prevent the gas from getting inside.”
The discomfort of the Graenuvellir kids is also being felt in other towns across Iceland long after the rest of the world stopped fretting over potential disruptions to trans-Atlantic air travel. The island’s Meteorological Office tracks which way the sulfur-dioxide blows daily from the fissure that opened up in the lava field that dates back to an eruption from 1797.
“Which town is affected depends only on weather and winds,” said Bergthora Thorbjarnardottir, a geophysicist at the Met Office.
Bardarbunga, one of Iceland’s largest volcanoes, began rumbling on Aug. 16. An eruption then started from a fissure 300m long and has since been moving northeast, away from the ice. An eruption under the ice of the glacier covering the volcano could cause an explosion that would spew ash into the air and disrupt air travel.
At the beginning of the eruption, airlines were put on alert for a potential repeat of 2010, when a volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull ice cap spewed a column of ash 9km into the air. That event shut airspace across Europe for six days, forcing carriers to cancel more than 100,000 flights.
Ash is a danger because the glass-like particles can damage jet engines.
While the current eruption is not the largest on record, it is being compared to the 1783 Lakagigar blowout, which lasted for seven to eight months and eventually covered 600km2 in lava, Thorbjarnardottir said.
“There’s still a chance that the eruption in Holuhraun will pose a risk to international air travel,” she said. “Although there’s quite a bit of activity in the crater of Bardarbunga volcano, the activity does seem to be moving northeast, away from the ice cap.”
The government has issued warnings on the health risks. Exposure to sulfur-dioxide can cause irritation in the eyes, throat and lungs. High levels can lead to breathing difficulties. Children are the most vulnerable, according to the Icelandic Health Directorate.
“Personally, I can feel the contamination a little,” Palsdottir said. “Breathing is a little uncomfortable and it’s uncomfortable staying outside when the contamination comes in over our town.”
So most Icelanders are just hoping the wind blows the right way and also for rain to damp the gas clouds. They may be in luck, according to the Met Office.
“Wind and rain is the best thing to happen for Icelanders while the eruption continues,” Thorbjarnardottir said. “Iceland usually has plenty of that.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion