[HN Gopher] A Lot of Damage in Grindavik
___________________________________________________________________
A Lot of Damage in Grindavik
Author : perihelions
Score : 290 points
Date : 2023-11-14 13:54 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (icelandmonitor.mbl.is)
(TXT) w3m dump (icelandmonitor.mbl.is)
| pierat wrote:
| They've also mostly rescued all animals as well from the area,
| including animals in homes, along with sheep and horses in
| pastures.
|
| When the volcano blows, it should only be property, building, and
| road damage.
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| > When the volcano blows, it should only be property, building,
| and _road_ damage.
|
| Mind you, those roads in Iceland might be expensive, with
| luxurious built-in heating. ;-)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowmelt_system
| bbarn wrote:
| I can tell you for sure there are no such heated roads in
| Grindavik. The one in Reykjavik is on a street that cars can
| drive down, but in practice don't very often. Large plows
| would struggle there and the pushed off snow would clog the
| walking areas in a very popular tourism location.
| icepat wrote:
| There's a non-zero risk of it going off in the ocean, which
| could cause ash fallout, depending on the magnitude of the
| blast.
|
| Property and infrastructure damage is not the only outcome
| here. We could end up with ash fallout and flight disruptions.
| There's also a major power station in the immediate risk zone,
| which is a major loss if it gets destroyed.
|
| If and when this blows up, it's going to be big. The question
| is just if it's big and causes fallout, or just big. And when
| we're talking about property damage, it's less damage and more
| "will the town be obliterated or not". The magma is most
| shallow under the town, and there's a 15 kilometer magma pipe
| extending to the ocean. So the possibility of the eruption
| happening in Grindavik itself is also very real.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| 2010 showed what kinds of impacts can occur when a volcano
| erupts in Iceland. [1]
|
| > In response to concerns that volcanic ash ejected during
| the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland would
| damage aircraft engines, the controlled airspace of many
| European countries was closed to instrument flight rules
| traffic, resulting in what at the time was the largest air-
| traffic shut-down since World War II.
|
| > On 16 April 2010, 16,000 of Europe's usual 28,000 daily
| scheduled passenger flights were cancelled and on the
| following day 16,000 of the usual 22,000 flights were
| cancelled. By 21 April 95,000 flights had been cancelled.
|
| > IATA stated that the total loss for the airline industry
| was around US$1.7 billion (PS1.1 billion, EUR1.3 billion).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_travel_disruption_after
| _th...
| icepat wrote:
| Eyjafjallajokull was a special case, it was not an oceanic
| blast, but a blast under a glacier. Fjallajokull means
| "glacier mountain". The blast flash-melted several tones of
| ice, which caused the lava to cool rapidly forming the ash
| cloud. If my memory serves, the glacier was in the caldera
| itself.
|
| But the effect would be very similar. The water would
| vaporize and create an aerosol of ash.
| avar wrote:
| > When the volcano blows, it should only be property, building,
| and road damage.
|
| People had the option to get their animals, but not everyone
| did so. If the eruption destroys the town some animals will be
| among the casualties, if they haven't starved etc. already.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| I have found geology professor Shawn Willsey's YouTube channel to
| have high value, no drama interpretations of the situation in
| Grindavik. He has been posting 1-2 videos per day for the past
| few days as new information arises.
|
| https://youtu.be/xvlZOpZE2KE?si=c2_Ew7LDKHrEpoN9
| coryfklein wrote:
| This is a much better introduction to what has happened this
| week; the original article gives absolutely no context about
| the related volcanic activity.
|
| TLDR; Grindavik is located in Iceland, a country known for its
| volcanic activity. Earthquakes and land deformation have
| exploded in frequency in the area under and around the small
| town of 4,000 people and geologists expect a volcanic eruption
| is imminent. The town has been evacuated.
| ptero wrote:
| To add a note that while 4000 people is a small town almost
| anywhere, it is over 1% of Iceland's population. So the
| impact on the country is non negligible. My 2c.
| brewdad wrote:
| It also sits about 5 miles from Iceland's only
| international airport, so could prove especially disruptive
| to the entire nation.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| > Iceland's only international airport
|
| That's not strictly the case. For example, Akureyri has
| some international flights:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akureyri_Airport
|
| Keflavik is obviously the only major international
| airport in Iceland though.
|
| A while back I remember hearing a proposal about
| expanding the airport in Egilsstadir to be capable of
| replacing Keflavik if (when?) it is disrupted by lava
| flow. I think it proved too expensive for much action to
| be taken though. It would be interesting logistically to
| see what would happen if Keflavik was knocked out of
| service.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| I wonder how many airports in the world are at such
| significant risk of "lava flow" and other catastrophic
| natural disasters.
|
| I actually see Tampa International this way. Its
| literally on the coast, and just barely missed near two
| near Cat-5 hurricanes in two years. And that risk is not
| shrinking.
| don_esteban wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Mount_Nyiragongo_erupt
| ion
|
| Lava flows came very close to Goma airport
| chanandler_bong wrote:
| REK can also handle most jets if necessary.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reykjav%C3%ADk_Airport
| gardarh wrote:
| Closer to 9 miles (15km). That's plenty (even though it
| doesn't sound like much), considering what kind of
| eruption this would be and how the fault lines lie.
| latchkey wrote:
| He starts off with saying that "there is a line of magma that
| is 15km long and 9 miles in length."
|
| Do you know why he would mix metrics like that?
|
| Edit: he's talking about a rectangle and his wording, to me,
| implied that he was using X/Y coordinates to talk about how big
| the rectangle is. Except that it sounded like he was mixing
| metrics. Other commenters suggest that he's just trying to help
| us dumb Americans. That could make sense too, but wasn't
| obvious in his wording to me. 15km ~= 9 miles, I should have
| done that math. =)
| earthnail wrote:
| Isn't he just trying to explain it for a wide audience? He's
| just translating units here.
| fhars wrote:
| For the benefit of the American viewers, who might not
| immediately know what 15km are.
| bitcharmer wrote:
| > 15km long and 9 miles in length
|
| This is not mixing. He's just presenting the length in two
| different measurement systems.
| jrace wrote:
| That does read weird
|
| "15km long, or 9miles"
|
| Would be much better
|
| The mixing of 'length' and 'long' was odd.
| anonu wrote:
| If he had said 15km long and 9 miles wide my head would've
| exploded
| schiffern wrote:
| > He starts off with saying that "there is a line of magma
| that is 15km long and 9 miles in length."
|
| The real explanation is rather prosaic: bad transcription. He
| doesn't use the word " _and_. "
|
| An accurate transcription would be: > there
| is a line of magma that is 15 km long--about 9 miles in
| length.
|
| He's just (parenthetically) converting the units.
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| I actually watch Shawn Willsey's content for everything but
| this topic. I find his Grindavik coverage isn't that great.
| It's overlong, over-speculative, and sometimes missed more
| current or extended information available elsewhere. Some of
| this I think is due to his being a relatively newer YouTuber
| (in terms of gaining traction) and his personal interest in
| Iceland: to be clear, its not that he's disingenuous or
| unqualified... its more that he's not yet crafted a public
| presentation style which fits the medium better. However his
| roadcut geology series is interesting even if you're only
| getting his on the spot opinions of what he's observing.
|
| By far, the best source about what's going on in Grindavik I've
| found is just the Icelandic Meteorological Office website:
| https://en.vedur.is/ (English version, which is quite good).
| That in combination with some residents of Iceland that post
| shorter updates the keeps close to the reported local news
| seems to be the best.
| Scarblac wrote:
| Looking for Grindavik news on X etc right now, there is already
| an annoying amount of video and images of erupting volcanoes,
| from previous years, or from somewhere else completely. Even
| though there is no eruption at all yet. Annoying.
| cryptoegorophy wrote:
| Community notes need to speed up
| haunter wrote:
| Am I using a different Twitter? I only see local videos no
| "annoying amount of video and images of erupting volcanoes,
| from previous years, or from somewhere else completely"
| seizethegdgap wrote:
| I was seeing a lot of what Scarblac said they were seeing,
| but looking right now at
|
| https://twitter.com/search?q=grindavik&f=live
|
| and it's pretty clean. You'll occasionally see the famous
| drone video from the 2021 eruption being touted as what's
| happening in Gridavik right now.
| Scarblac wrote:
| Yesterday it was way worse. Then the cracks in the middle of
| town opened and it seems that's sensational enough to use
| instead.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Not just Twitter, I saw a "symbol" picture of a volcanic
| eruption on a major German news site about Grindavik...
| rjmunro wrote:
| This is why you can't use X (or facebook or any other social
| media) for news.
| styren wrote:
| All depends on the accounts that you follow but I agree that
| the search function of X is horrible.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| The TL;DR of how you can search on X:
|
| * from:twittername
|
| * keyword1 OR keyword2
|
| * min_faves:2000
|
| * min_retweets:2000
|
| * filter:links
|
| * filter:images
|
| * until:YYYY-MM-DD
|
| * since:YYYY-MM-DD
|
| * near:location within:15mi
|
| its actually a pretty nice search ngl
| LesZedCB wrote:
| makes you wonder about this very thread then
| Arubis wrote:
| HN has plenty of flaws and cultural issues, but the stated
| intention here is to promote discussion, not "user
| engagement". Where Twitter/X promotes outright lies, here I
| typically take more issue with folks' lenses and biases.
| tl;dr: I trust HN orders of magnitude more than Twitter and
| crew.
| _jal wrote:
| Is Ycombinator paying out to their "content generators"
| here?
|
| Also, while I can imagine one's HN reputation helping
| someone a job or find a venture partner in this little
| bubble, there is no comparison with Xitter's reach.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Reminds me of nearly every time there is an aircraft incident
| with, say a 737 but the media show a stock photo of a
| completely different plane that has 4 engines.
| namuol wrote:
| You may want to consider waiting a few more minutes to get news
| from reliable sources.
| sebazzz wrote:
| Instead of becoming a more reliable source of news, thanks to
| ad payouts and the resulting engagement farming by blue
| checkmarks Twitter/X is becoming increasingly less reliable.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Since the effect is so obvious, it's hard to imagine that
| hasn't been the objective.
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| Iceland is the only place I've been to twice in two years when
| traveling.
|
| I usually go a new place everytime but I simply couldn't get
| enough of it just once and had to go again ASAP.
|
| Hopefully this situation turns out better than the worse
| predictions.
| bmelton wrote:
| Same. Wife and I went for New Years this year and it was by far
| one of the most satisfying vacations I've ever taken.
| Absolutely nothing about the place is overrated, and we lament
| how little of it we've experienced.
|
| It is as close to magic as anywhere I've been, and their New
| Year celebration is insanity.
| cdelsolar wrote:
| I went up to the hill in the center of Reykjavik for New
| Years and was astonished, completely astonished by the amount
| of fireworks that could be seen.
| ctennis1 wrote:
| We have plans to visit for this coming New Years, (unless
| things get dramatically worse I suppose). Excited in reading
| your comment.
| bmelton wrote:
| If you can, see if you can get to a bonfire a few hours
| beforehand. Travel / tourism agencies can arrange this.
|
| Also, if you'd enjoy seeing the Aurora Borealis, know that
| due to weather, clouds, etc., it isn't very reliable, and
| it may be best to plan on multiple attempts at it. The
| experiences we had ranged from disappointing to
| terrifically amazing, but if we'd only gone the one time,
| we'd have left without having experienced it.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Been there three times in winter, never saw an aurora
| brealis once... Still great trips so!
| baz00 wrote:
| The hotdogs are very overrated! Hospital in Selfoss is
| amazing though, especially after eating one :)
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| I thought how can a hotdog be better.. its a hotdog.
|
| They blew my mind, best hot dog i've ever had. Even ordered
| some directly from Iceland after coming back with all the
| toppings.
| baz00 wrote:
| I think I ate three over two weeks and they were all
| awful. The only thing that was really nice there was
| pepper cheese.
| xenospn wrote:
| Honestly. It's a beautiful country full of wonderful people and
| I can't wait to go back again. Wish them nothing but the best!
| alistairSH wrote:
| We visited in January 2017 and I'd love to go back when there's
| more than 5 hours of daylight. The trip was spectacular. And
| it's an easy flight from DC and 5 nights was plenty to hit most
| of the easy tourist spots.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Winter is the ideal time to go northern lights hunting.
| Either way, I've been propably too often, 5 times by now,
| twice in summer including one highland crossing, and three
| times in winter. My recomondation would be, if budget and
| vacation time allows, to visit Iceland once in summer and
| once in winter.
| mrtksn wrote:
| What I find eerie is that they stroke out Grindavik from the
| signs:
| https://twitter.com/grindaviknews/status/1724286780914962487
|
| I know, they are doing it to inform people that they shouldn't go
| there but it gives it such a post apocalyptic vibe.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| Well, to be honest, for Grindavik we could currently be talking
| about a Pre-Apocalyptic situation :)
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| I wonder if this is a fiction genre. Can I read a book that
| starts with a happy town with not much going on, builds up to
| just before a catastrophe, and then ends? Maybe like Part 1
| of Seveneves.
| rob74 wrote:
| I read this book recently: https://www.amazon.com/Anomaly-
| Novel-Herv%C3%A9-Tellier/dp/1... - don't want to give away
| too much (that's why I'm not linking to the Wikipedia
| article), but it fits the genre you are proposing - except
| spanning the entire world, not just a town.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| Maybe you can find something on this list,
| https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/pre-apocalyptic
|
| I looked at a few books on this list, but not every book
| seems to really be about pre-apocalypse. Pre-Apocalyptic
| fictions sounds like literary edging :D
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| "The Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis kind of has that
| feeling for a while. I couldn't really get into it, though;
| it's undeniably a well-written book, just not the kind of
| book I wanted to read.
| hef19898 wrote:
| That was my hope for Fear the Walking Dead, a show about
| society collapses under a zombie apocalypse. Instead we got
| some hints in a pre-zombie LA, went straight to a cordoned
| of quarantine zone and a time jump to "now the world,
| except your little suburb, went to hell". Seems writing
| convincing stories about _why_ everything would collapse is
| a lot harder than stories set after an assumed collapse.
| 317070 wrote:
| Sounds like the movies "Don't look up" and "Melancholia"
|
| Not much really happens, all everybody knows is that doom
| is imminent. The movies are mainly about how the different
| characters handle this situation.
|
| That said, I am still waiting for a movie that just
| suddenly ends with a car crash where the main protagonist
| dies, fully unrelated to the story.
| prewett wrote:
| The last episode of Downton Abbey, Season 3 is reasonably
| close to that.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| A bit reminiscent of the ending of No Country for Old
| Men, although you never find out if he actually dies.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| On The Beach. So much doom I literally can't finish it. Ok
| it's post-apocalyptic but reads like it's pre-apocalyptic.
| tangus wrote:
| It's the standard practice when the road is closed. It doesn't
| give apocalyptical vibes to me, but maybe roads break too often
| where I live :)
| _ph_ wrote:
| It is the usual way of denoting that there is no turn right
| which leads to the designated location. Usually because of some
| road closure. Of course here it has a strange vibe to it.
| rob74 wrote:
| Yeah, standard procedure (here in Germany too), except
| usually it's the _road_ that 's closed, and not the entire
| _town_...
| alttab wrote:
| This is an American interpretation. Here in the US, cones,
| lights, or lane-blockers are used to close exits.
|
| Culturally, its because American's won't read a sign and
| follow the instructions if we can still "do" it. You have
| to physically block us, and its too expensive to change all
| the signs.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| My favorite is Chicago's reversible express lanes, which
| have _thirteen_ physical gates you have to blow through
| in order go to the wrong way. I always wonder if they add
| another set every time someone still drives through them
| all.
| rob74 wrote:
| Nah, it's actually the same here in Germany too - I live
| near a railway crossing which was recently rebuilt and
| couldn't be used for a few weeks. The "strike-through" at
| the intersection was just the first step, then there was
| a first barrier blocking half the street, with a sign
| "residents only", and then a bit later a second barrier,
| but still some people just absolutely _had to_ drive past
| all those barriers until they were literally in the
| middle of the construction site to find out that no, it
| 's _really_ not possible to cross the tracks...
| meheleventyone wrote:
| They aren't closing the exit though as it's needed so
| people can get down there for quite a few reasons. There
| are actual manned roadblocks a bit further in.
| strken wrote:
| Not that it's quite the same, but I wonder how common it is to
| have a place struck off of official maps and signs for safety
| purposes? I know of one, Wittenoom[0] in Australia, which was
| removed due to being heavily contaminated with asbestos, but I
| wonder what other examples are out there.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenoom,_Western_Australia
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| There was a lake that was removed from the maps of a state
| park near me, although that was to prevent it from being
| over-visited
| lisper wrote:
| Just FYI, the past tense of "strike" is "struck", not "stroke".
| It could be argued that it should be "stroke" to parallel words
| like "break-broke" and "wake-woke" but it's not. English is
| weird. (And the past tense of "hike" is "hiked", not "huck" nor
| "hoke", which aren't words at all [UPDATE - turns out they are,
| see child comment from u/GrinningFool], but they probably
| should be.)
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Or they meant this def'n of stroke:
|
| > a mark made by drawing a pen, pencil, or paintbrush in one
| direction across paper or canvas.
| lisper wrote:
| Yes, but that's a noun, not a verb.
|
| The word "stroke" can be a verb, but its meaning (to rub
| lightly) doesn't make any sense in context.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Well, IIRC I just tapped whatever autocomplete suggested :)
| GrinningFool wrote:
| huck - to throw or toss; to launch oneself in the air
|
| hoke - to give a contrived, falsely impressive, or hokey
| quality to
| lisper wrote:
| Well, whadyaknow. TIL.
| ska wrote:
| Even more confusingly, if it is past participle usage, it's
| "stricken"
|
| e.g. "Strike it off", "I struck it off", "It was stricken
| off"
|
| same with drive/drove/driven
|
| One of those fun things for ESL folks I am sure.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| "Struck" is the general past participle of "strike",
| "stricken" is a past participle available _specifically_
| for the sense of removing from a list (but the general form
| "struck" is also correct and often used for that sense,
| too.)
| ska wrote:
| It's not that narrow - e.g. "was stricken by a sense of
| foreboding"
|
| You also would say panic-stricken, not panic-struck.
|
| Agree it's not universal though, helpfully, and sometimes
| is it "struck" in non adjectival past participle.
|
| But not in the OP case, I think (much like striking off a
| list, striking off a sign). I probably should have
| mentioned that it wasn't universal for struck though.
|
| I could just have confused things.
| manojlds wrote:
| Apocalyptic vibe would be signs overrun with weeds and such and
| cars stranded on highways
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Have they evacuated the town?
|
| Edit: I see that it looks like they have but residents will be
| allowed in to retrieve belongings. Is there any chance that an
| eruption comes in the form of a large scale collapse above the
| magma chamber...or is that not plausible?
| bbarn wrote:
| While anything's possible, the trend of recent eruptions in the
| Reykjanes peninsula have been more of the slow trickling small
| kind. They have also been relatively off the beaten path, so
| it's hard to compare ground shifting in the previous places
| since you likely wouldn't notice it after the fact like you
| will with pavement and buildings.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Got it. Here's hoping that this will be a continuation of the
| trend.
| rob74 wrote:
| It only needs a small scale collapse if your house is standing
| over the sinkhole while you're inside, so evacuation is
| probably still the safest bet...
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Oh yeah, I wasn't meaning to suggest that evacuation might
| not be the correct course, it seems at this point not doing
| so would be irresponsible. Was just curious about the
| possibility of something very large occurring given the
| sinking above the chamber.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Also some volcanic gases that might be released are quite
| poisonous & can be blown by wind around the place.
| KeyXiote wrote:
| Any public data on this? I would love to collab on some
| predictive modeling for cases like this. There are some sources
| but couldn't find anything comprehensive enough to be accurate,
| need more historical context comparisons etc.
| gorbachev wrote:
| Icelandic Met Office probably.
|
| https://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes
|
| I haven't explored the site enough to see if they have
| downloadable datasets, however.
| saevarom wrote:
| Here is at least some interpretation of data with interesting
| graphs, like displacement graphs etc:
| https://en.vedur.is/about-imo/news/a-seismic-swarm-started-n...
| pcrh wrote:
| Iceland has had active volcanoes all the time it has been
| inhabited.
|
| Does anyone know what the "traditional" response to these sorts
| of ground movements was?
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| Historically?
|
| The 1783 Laki eruption comes to my mind. Back then, a 25km long
| fissure with 130 vents opened. About 14km3 of lava and 1km3 of
| tephra was emitted. Lava fountains were estimated to have
| reached between 800m and 1400m.
|
| Some 20-25% of the population died, 50% of cattle and 50% of
| the horse population perished.
|
| It is argued that this eruption was the catalyst for the French
| Revolution, as the amount of emitted gasses caused extreme
| weather patterns across Europe (and the world) throughout the
| 1780s leading to famine, diseases and social unrest.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki
|
| In contemporary times, there's the 1973 eruption of Eldfell on
| the island of Heimaey. It destroyed some 400 homes and led to a
| temporary evacuation of some 5.300 inhabitants. By 1975, some
| 80% of the population had returned. Moreover, today it's the
| foremost fishing center of Island with over 1/3rd of the total
| fish catch originating from its harbor.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldfell
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > By 1975, some 80% of the population had returned.
|
| Of course they had to come back to "home island".
| pcrh wrote:
| >The parish minister and provost of Vestur-Skaftafellssysla,
| Jon Steingrimsson (1728-1791), grew famous for the eldmessa
| ['elt,mes:a] ("fire mass") that he delivered on 20 July 1783.
|
| I looked this up, and found this: "In his introduction to the
| translation Gudmundur E. Sigvaldson classifies Jon's Eldritid
| as a "scientific classic as well is a literary jewel." [0]
|
| It chronicles the aftermath of the eruption in some detail
| (i.e. people did not flee the region, for some reason....),
| e.g.:
|
| >The poisonous compounds leaked out of the Laki craters
| caused, as Jon depicts so graphically, the skin to rot off
| the spines of horses, swelling in their heads, jaws, and
| joints, rotting insides, and shrinking bones. The sheep and
| cattle suffered similarly. The meat from these animals was
| "both foul-smelling and bitter and full of poison, so that
| many a person died as a result of eating it" (Fires of the
| Earth, 76).
|
| [0] https://www.medievalist.com/articles/strongjn-versus-the-
| vol...
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Does anyone know what the "traditional" response to these
| sorts of ground movements was?"
|
| The very old tradition was to increase the amounts of
| sacrifices to the gods, because clearly they were angry.
| pcrh wrote:
| Is there documentation for this? Icelanders are Christian
| (since when, I'm not sure), and would more likely pray. Also
| I don't think there isn't a history of human sacrifice in
| Norway/Denmark/Scandinavia.
| troyvit wrote:
| This article talks about the Eldfell eruption in 1973. It's one
| of the few cases where people were able to divert a lava flow.
|
| https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/news/volcano-watch-wh...
| m4rtink wrote:
| IIRC, they also used the remaining solid lava flow for
| district heating for a while so that it cooled down faster
| and could be trucked out of the way where necessary.
| omegant wrote:
| For anyone guessing how it could go to the town, just check the
| recent case of the La Palma volcano lava that runned over a town.
|
| https://youtu.be/kjg-1BemSOo?si=H_We-hOXtCHT3Wgc
|
| The eruption in Hawai some years ago also destroyed a town and a
| harbor.
| kseistrup wrote:
| RUV has a liveblog with the latest news about the situation in
| English, Icelandic and Polish:
| https://www.ruv.is/english/2023-11-10-liveblog-reykjanes-pen...
| kd5bjo wrote:
| Note that the Icelandic edition [1] understandably gets more
| frequent and timely updates than the others. If you're ready to
| put up with the quirks of machine translation, there's a lot
| more information there to see.
|
| [1] https://www.ruv.is/frettir/innlent/2023-11-14-ryma-
| grindavik...
| jahnu wrote:
| Your comment prompted me to look up how many Poles live in
| Iceland. Turns out they are the largest minority which is
| mildly surprising but shouldn't be I guess.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_in_Iceland
| kseistrup wrote:
| When I started reading RUV I wondered what the red and white
| flag was. My mind tried with "Greenland", but Greenland
| because of the Nordic affiliation, but Greenland itself has a
| population of less than 60k, so how many greenlanders could
| there be in Iceland?
|
| When the flag turned out to be Polish I had to turn to the
| Woodchuck Book and was surprised, just like you. I should
| have mentioned it. Thanks for the link.
| ______ wrote:
| That's pretty close to Blue Lagoon, one of the most popular
| tourist destinations in the area, which is now closed as a
| precaution: https://www.bluelagoon.com/seismic-activity
| orlp wrote:
| It's also a waste of time tourist trap. The normal Icelandic
| baths are much cheaper and just as good.
| baz00 wrote:
| Maybe. Avoided it. Went to Myvatn instead. Turned out that it
| means midge-lake. Spent 2 days eating flies. They didn't bite
| but weren't tasty. I've never driven the fuck out of
| somewhere so quickly.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Well, Myvatn is basically on the other side of the
| island... Cam only recommend the non-Blue Lagoon hot baths
| and tubs, easily as good and a lot cheaper.
| esfandia wrote:
| Maybe, but the surreal atmosphere when the sun rises, you are
| surrounded by blue everywhere, you are jetlagged from just
| having landed half hour ago, and you have a drink in hand is
| indescribable. I went to other Icelandic baths during my stay
| but nothing matched that experience.
| YeBanKo wrote:
| Not just as good, but better. There are no morons around you
| who are constantly live streaming.
| RobertVDB wrote:
| Aren't earthquakes super common in Iceland? Or am I wrong on
| that?
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Earthquakes aren't uncommon, but what's happening in Grindavik
| is more than a earthquake. They were having hundreds of quakes
| an hour, a fissure opened and magma might come up soon. All in
| a little town and near a geothermal power plant which also
| fuels the Blue Lagoon. This also isn't super far from the main
| airport and the road that leads to it.
| jwozn wrote:
| You aren't wrong, but the topic of interest here is the
| volcanic eruption. They are also relatively common compared to
| elsewhere in the world, but most are small and not in populated
| areas. See: https://www.visiticeland.com/eruption/
| bandyaboot wrote:
| They are and they tend to be small because of the type of plate
| boundary they're associated with. But when they're coming in
| large swarms near a volcano which is the case here, it's a
| pretty strong signal of an impending eruption.
| Scarblac wrote:
| During Covid a new volcano erupted quite near Grindavik, that
| was very tourist friendly: close to Reykjavik, not too large or
| dangerous, nothing it could damage nearby, a few km hiking from
| a road. Many web cams were setup and lots of beautiful drone
| footage was uploaded to YouTube as well. It erupted again 2021
| and 2022. So it's a well known volcano now to the Internet
| public.
|
| Now it seems there will be an eruption on the same fissure
| again, but a) there are many more earthquakes than before, b)
| the detected movement of magma is far larger, and c) it could
| erupt anywhere on a 15km fissure line, but right now it seems
| to do so right in the middle of the nearby town. So it looks
| like this time it will be a disaster.
|
| There is also a geothermal power plant that heats the whole
| peninsula nearby, as well as tourist attraction the Blue
| Lagoon, that are both at risk.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| yes, and earthquakes are also super common precursors to
| volcanic eruptions
| rob74 wrote:
| What's interesting to see in the pictures is that they already
| built a detour around the fissure: it starts in the area of fresh
| asphalt to the right of the guy in this photo
| https://cdn.mbl.is/frimg/1/45/18/1451863.jpg, then goes through
| an also freshly paved-over parking lot/former green space and
| rejoins the road in the background (behind the construction
| fences).
| saevarom wrote:
| I think you are misinterpreting this photo. Nobody has been
| paving over the fissures in the town. I think it's a
| combination of moisture, different coloured asphalt sections,
| and light/shadows that tricks the eye. As you can see in this
| drone footage [1] the car park asphalt is darker, and the hot
| water pipes ruptured in the ground create steam that spreads
| moisture over the asphalt, making it darker. Also, you have a
| building next to the car park which makes it even darker than
| the street.
|
| [1] https://ruv-vod-
| clips.akamaized.net/76a26e8d-1190-492c-9163-...
| mhandley wrote:
| In the last hour they have detected increased levels of SO2 in
| Grindavik, so they've evacuated residents who were being allowed
| in to retrieve their valuables:
|
| https://www.ruv.is/english/2023-11-10-liveblog-reykjanes-pen...
|
| No signs of an actual eruption yet though on the cameras (the
| steam is a geothermal power station):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=804nPrAUAxg
| bell-cot wrote:
| @dang - might we change the title to "Spreading & Subsidence
| Damage in Grindavik"?
|
| With all the "Lava & Eruption!" hype around this situation, that
| would make what is actually happening now in Grindavik much
| clearer.
| hk__2 wrote:
| > With all the "Lava & Eruption!" hype around this situation,
| that would make what is actually happening now in Grindavik
| much clearer.
|
| Is it really the right place for it, though? HN is not CNN; if
| you want that sort of news there are probably better sources.
|
| > If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| bell-cot wrote:
| True...but this is currently the #1 story on HN, so evidently
| "good hackers" find it interesting.
|
| And if the current situation is "nothing special happening",
| then let's not waste any good hacker's time with a pretty-
| ambiguous headline.
| h1fra wrote:
| 1m displacement is crazy, I can't imagine how much destruction it
| would cause inside a major city.
| rwmj wrote:
| I hear in Japan the reason they have electric wires on poles and
| houses have individual gas cylinders is to provide resiliency
| during earthquakes -- the earth becomes a liquid.
| arbuge wrote:
| Gases passing through dirt/sandy substances at high pressure
| will tend to do that.
|
| See for example: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EImO4agHqOg
| m4rtink wrote:
| Very interesting! Now I have to think how this could be used
| to make something productive! :D Maybe some sort of special
| bearing floating on the fludized sand you can turn of and
| stop/stabilize by turning thr gas pipe off ?
| nerdponx wrote:
| Electric wires on poles are also more likely to get damaged by
| wind, ice, fire, and flood, either directly or by trees falling
| onto them. There are tradeoffs involved.
| q1w2 wrote:
| They're also much cheaper to construct.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Getting OT but I've noticed in Scandinavian countries they use
| pavers a lot where in the USA we'd more likely have poured
| concrete or asphalt/tarmac. Sidewalks, parking surfaces,
| driveways, etc.
|
| Pavers would seem to me to be both more expensive to install
| and require higher maintenance. Is there a reason they are used
| so much?
| InCityDreams wrote:
| For the uk readers: I'm guessing 'pavers' are 'flags', or
| 'flagstones'.
|
| Humped a few of them in my time...thank goodness for Atari,
| and all that followed.!!
| nmeofthestate wrote:
| They're called pavers, or block paving, or monoblock in the
| UK. Flagstones are big slabs of stone.
| yread wrote:
| There are machines that are super fast at laying them. And
| digging them up and replacing them is a lot less disruptive
| than asphalt. Plus it makes cars drive a bit slower. And they
| drain naturally
| runeofdoom wrote:
| Purely a guess on my part: concrete or asphalt will be
| destroyed by frost heave[1] and be difficult to patch well,
| while pavers will endure it better and are easier to restore.
|
| 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_heaving
| danaris wrote:
| We have electric wires on poles in the northeast US, too--
| largely because the ground freezes solid for several months of
| the year.
|
| It's not that unusual a precaution.
|
| (Though yes, as a sibling commenter notes, we _do_ have to deal
| with them getting taken down by wind, lightning, and the
| occasional hapless driver from time to time. There 's no
| perfect solution.)
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| My guess is that it's more likely due to the cost of
| digging/right of way, etc. It gets significantly cold here in
| MN and most powerlines are underground, but we have a lot of
| open space.
|
| A statistic I remember from when I lived there is that
| Connecticut has more trees per mile of powerline than any
| other state. Every time there was an ice storm, thousands of
| people lost power.
| cvccvroomvroom wrote:
| Live webcam https://youtube.com/live/Qvw5qh5K4wI
| j-a-a-p wrote:
| Somebody observed in this thread
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38233905 seeing the town
| shake on camera
| q1w2 wrote:
| Seems more likely to be the wind blowing the camera - hard to
| tell
| runarberg wrote:
| Most likely wind. However this thread was from Friday and the
| ground was constantly shaking that day. I was there and there
| were rather large earthquakes like every 10-20 minutes (and
| smaller earthquakes every 20-30 seconds) between 16:00 and
| 23:00 (when I evacuated). It is highly likely that the poster
| in this thread was actually seeing earthquakes.
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