Iceland review - 2016, Page 46

44 ICELAND REVIEW
S.O.S
A spate of accidents and close calls has highlighted the
dangers of traveling in Iceland. Zoë Robert takes a look at
the situation and what is being done to improve it.
Since Iceland caught the atten-
tion of the world during the 2010
Eyjafjallajökull eruption, the
country has been marketed intensively
as a tourist destination—and recently
with emphasis on it as a place to visit
year-round. This, along with the deval-
uation of the Icelandic króna following
the 2008 financial crash, combined with
soaring interest in Iceland, contributed
to a 245 percent increase in the number
of tourists visiting the country from
2005 to 2015. This year, 1.73 million
tourists are forecast to visit Iceland (pop-
ulation 330,000), representing a 34 per-
cent increase since last year. Though
Iceland is one of the safest countries
in the world, its nature is certainly not
without risks. Accidents and close calls
during this past winter put the topic of
safe travel and tourism growth in the
spotlight. With such large numbers of
tourists expected, safety concerns have
been amplified, prompting industry par-
ties and authorities to actively work
together to increase visitor safety.
SPOTLIGHT ON SAFETY
On February 10, a fatal accident occurred
on Reynisfjara beach, South Iceland,
when a tourist was swept out to sea by
a wave and drowned. So-called sneak-
er waves—unanticipated waves, great-
er in force and height than the ones
preceding—make Reynisfjara notorious-
ly dangerous. The man who drowned
was standing on a 50 cm (20 in) high
rock a few meters from the beach’s basalt
columns, taking pictures, when he was
caught by a wave and sucked out to sea
about 550 meters (600 yards) away from
the shore. A similar incident occurred
in 2007, when a woman drowned, and
several tourists narrowly escaped death
on the beach 2013-2015.
Located near the village of Vík í
Mýrdal, about two-and-a-half hours’
drive from Reykjavík, Reynisfjara, with
its black pebbles, basalt columns and
sea stacks, has become one of Iceland’s
most popular tourist destinations, with
around 2,500 visitors daily during the
winter and up to 4,000 a day expected
this summer. Discussion about the risk of
accidents at Reynisfjara and other tourist
hotspots was reignited shortly before the
February drowning, after news and imag-
es of tourists in grave danger, at times
acting recklessly, were published in local
media. There were photos of tourists
getting caught by waves at Reynisfjara; of
others ignoring closure signs at Gullfoss
by walking on the narrow, icy path; and,
finally, of a group of 40-50 tourists on the
ice in Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon, a few
hundred meters from the shore. They
had to jump between chunks of ice to
return to land. Ingólfur Bruun, a guide,
told news site Vísir at the time that the
situation was a “ticking time bomb.” The
ice is unstable and due to the near freez-
ing water temperature, anyone who falls
in could not be expected to survive long.
The day before the February drown-
ing at Reynisfjara, South Iceland Chief
of Police Sveinn Kristján Rúnarsson
warned that a safety patrol at the beach
was needed. “We can’t just bury our
PHOTO THIS SPREAD BY PÁLL STEFÁNSSON.
OTHER PHOTOS BY FINNBOGI MARINÓSSON,
KRISTJÁN GUÐMUNDSSON AND MAGNÚS H. JÓHANNSSON.