Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.09.2016, Síða 52

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Hvolsvöllur is a sleepy village in
south Iceland, between Hella and
Seljalandsfoss. It’s a somewhat for-
gettable, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it
settlement of just a few small han-
gars and stores, a bank, and a hand-
ful of houses, all whipped by dust
from the steady tourist traffic of
Route One.
But today, Hvolsvöllur takes on
a new significance. “This is the
last village before the floodplain
starts,” says Andrés, our guide for
the day. “If Katla were to have a
major eruption, everything past
here could be under threat.”
T h e o n w a r d s d r i v e c u t s
through swathes of verdant farm-
land. Houses and churches crown
green hillocks, and fat sheep re-
lax in long, wavy grass. In the dis-
tance stand two glaciers: Eyjaf-
jallajökull, and the much larger
Mýrdalsjökull—the 700m thick
ice cap that sits squarely over the
Katla caldera, which has been
rumbling ominously over the
week preceding our visit.
Absolutely destructive
Katla’s last major eruption was in
1918, extending Iceland’s southern
coast with 5km of deposited sand,
rock and silt in the process. In the
intervening years, this land has
been necessarily used for roads,
power lines, and buildings of vari-
ous types. Everything from Hvols-
völlur to 40km east of Vík could
now sit in the path of eruption
flooding.
"If an eruption occurs, it's been
estimated that it would be one
hour before the flood water breaks
through the surface,” says Andrés,
“and then four hours before the
water reaches the coast. People
have just a few hours to evacuate
the area.”
Locals have been on their toes
since Eyjafjallajökull erupted in
2010. All three of Eyjafjallajökull’s
previous recorded eruptions—in
920, 1612 and 1821—were followed
by an eruption of Katla. But all
of Iceland’s major volcanoes are
monitored for earthquakes and
other telltale signs that some-
thing might be going on beneath
the surface.
"Every year since 2008 the re-
ports have been that Katla is mov-
ing,” says Andrés, “so it's nothing
new. But now the earthquakes are
big. Katla’s ‘little sister’ Hekla is
also overdue—she erupts every
ten years or so. Hekla isn’t under
ice—her eruptions have a local
effect, more or less—powerful,
but mainly affecting farmers and
aviation over the island. But Katla
we know very little about—just
that it could be absolutely de-
structive."
The ascent
Soon, we pass the rolling plains
of Sólheimasandur. Andrés pulls
over to deflate the tyres of our
monstrous super jeep for the as-
cent to Mýrdalsjökull. The car—a
Ford F-350 Super Duty, modified
to take 55” tyres—has proven
something of a celebrity through-
out the day, with tourists posing
for pictures every time we pull
over. With good reason: it’s so tall
that it comes with a stepladder for
passengers to climb in.
Although it at first seems ex-
cessive, it soon becomes appar-
ent that there’s a reason such cars
exist. We labour up a steep road
littered with potholes the depth of
ditches, the impacts cushioned by
the soft deflated tyres.
As we approach the track ’s
1060m terminus, the hills to our
left drop away, revealing a breath-
taking valley of black, blue and
bright white glacier ice far below,
cracked in an organic and yet hyp-
notically regular pattern. We pull
over, watching a trickle of water
running from some nearby ice
and joining with other rivulets
until it forms a river.
It leads to the edge of a high
cliff, where the water tumbles
far below and vanishes under
another ice sheet. Even without
an eruption, the amount of melt-
water is surprising. As we sit in
silence taking in Mýrdalsjökull’s
rega l presence and dizz y ing
scale, it’s a sobering thought to
imagine the impact of a full-
fledged eruption.
Volcano
“Nobody remembers a
Katla eruption. It could
be total destruction.”
With Katla rumbling, we went for a closer look
Words JOHN ROGERS Photos ART BICNICK
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 14 — 2016
52