Why do folks wish to see Grindavík? Gunnar Schram, the police chief for Suðurnes, the area of Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula that has erupted six instances since final December, laughs on the query.
The attract of getting near an energetic volcano is so robust that even the individual tasked with making certain folks behave across the eruption web site at Grindavík, which opened as much as the general public on Monday for the primary time because the city began cracking open on 10 November final 12 months, can’t deny its majesty.
“Many vacationers that come to Iceland have by no means even seen lava up shut,” he says, incredulous.
Though essentially the most harmful elements are cordoned off, visiting Grindavík continues to be solely potential at travellers’ personal threat, and kids are suggested to not go. The bottom continues to be emitting steam and only one metre down the rock is as sizzling as 800C. Scientists are intently monitoring the state of affairs, and one other eruption is predicted within the subsequent month or two.
“If it wasn’t for the obstacles round Grindavík, many of the city can be beneath lava right now. It’s not laborious to see that folks have curiosity in that,” says Schram.
Even Icelanders, who’re used to witnessing the facility of nature up shut, are modified by shut encounters with volcanos. “However for vacationers,” he provides, “coming to Iceland and seeing these issues in Grindavík up shut, that have to be one thing.”
And but vacationers haven’t precisely rushed to go to what’s now a ghost city, after nature pressured a thriving, close-knit, multigenerational group of three,800 to disperse. To date, they’ve had about 50 guests a day.
After all, a part of the attraction of Iceland is its standing as a volcanic hotspot. In August, I noticed the volcano from the air and, regardless of the destruction it had prompted, the sight of the pink glow, even from afar, was magnetic.
However in contrast with earlier eruptions – akin to that of the Fagradalsfjall volcano close to Grindavík in 2021, a so-called “vacationer eruption” which went on for six months however didn’t pose any risk to life – the occasions of the final 12 months have been much more severe by way of human impression and have even proved deadly. Lúðvík Pétursson, 50, went lacking whereas filling cracks within the floor in January. The seek for him was referred to as off after a number of days.
When the Observer went to Grindavík in February, guests had been required to have particular QR codes that had been scanned at a checkpoint to enter. Across the city the one different automobiles had been police automobiles and transferring vans, whereas most of the remaining residents had been packing up their livelihoods. There have been fences cordoning off unstable buildings, deep cracks within the floor, and in most of the home home windows handwritten sings mentioned Farin (gone). Individuals had been suggested to put on face masks to guard them from the overwhelming stench of sulphur dioxide. However now that’s not required.
At the moment, some residents and companies stay, together with fisheries, however with 90% of properties purchased up by the federal government and the probability of extra eruptions, the longer term is a large uncertainty.
Grindavík Guesthouse is among the many small variety of companies that has determined to reopen, although its house owners have been pressured to maneuver out of the city themselves. Within the final 12 months, the house owners, who’ve 4 youngsters, have moved six instances. They’re selling the close by lava fields “for an up-close expertise of the uncooked Icelandic panorama.” To date they’ve had some vacationers who’ve come to see the empty city, some who had been passing by way of and others who had been going to the Blue Lagoon, the close by geothermal spa.
The native tourism board says it has seen a gentle movement of vacationers and locals visiting the city because the reopening, however it has been troublesome to develop volcano tourism as an attraction as a result of uncertainty of the eruptions. A Grindavík-based tour operator is providing guided excursions by way of the city highlighting the adjustments earlier than and after evacuation, and extra are anticipated to start out up sooner or later.
Though there was an impact on vacationer numbers initially, which the tourism board partly blames on worldwide media reporting of the eruptions, numbers have picked as much as barely greater than earlier ranges to this point this 12 months. Between January and September 2024, greater than 1.7 million folks visited Iceland.
The brand new Icelandic president, Halla Tómasdóttir, was eager to emphasize to the Observer in August that the nation was open as ordinary and fully protected for tourism.
However, the Icelandic vacationer board warns, anyone who defies official recommendation to go off-piste of their explorations can’t anticipate to be rescued.
The board’s security specialist, Dagbjartur Brynjarsson, says for some catastrophe vacationers, the draw of social media consideration has proved too compelling. “We’ve got some folks, principally foreigners, working throughout recent lava, so to talk, and going very near the crater. If one thing occurs, nobody will come and get you.”
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