Cinema
Eruption of the volcano Eyjafjalla at the 14th of April 2010
The deep valley of tears was already
crossed at
Monday the 12th of
April at our arrival day. The first plan to get the fissure
at Flimmvolhals together with an aurora on photo was perfectly
hammered, when at the same day the message came, the place
in the super truck is available but the eruption stopped.
Fine, from a good friend I got the e-mail that my
good years of luck are over. Depressed we trunk joking with serious
faces ice tea against depressions, orange juice for the
hope, and apple juice (less) for the happiness. Ok that’s
it, one week teasing ponies- geyser Strokkur –and back home.
Because of the catastrophic weather prognosis I
proposed to fly earlier. And if in Iceland
the weather is bad, it-is-really-bad. And now I took one
sentence, which I copied from the last two reports.
‘And
everything
came elsewise’.
First impressions 15 hours after the
eruption. Tar pitch black the northern lain plume appeared,
the southern was steaming snowy white. Maybe amass glacier
water was running in the south side of the fissure and was
directly steamed up.
Only 35 hours after our
psycodelic juice cure a really nervous mood came up in the
hotel Ranga at the morning of the 14th of April.
Partly we got the news that a strange volcanic happening was
going on. After a short time, the braking news received us.
The Eyjafjalla Volcano was erupting with an immense
explosion at 3:00 o’clock in the morning. Wow!! The
evidences brought the aerial recordings and photos with the
infrared cameras, which were sent promptly in the Islands
RUV-News. They reported from three new craters in a one km
fissure. At 11:00 am we could also see for two minutes from
a distance of 25km the huge white-grey shining steam cloud
which seems to arise to nowhere. The medias told about 6-8
km
Then,
the weather
changed completely to bad
and till
Friday no one
could
observe the volcano
from the
ground. Here
only one
action
could brought the
solution:
Helicopter…. Jorge, photographer
from Portugal was
pushing vehement (Thank’s
Jorge) to take the
first
flight in the evening the
same day.
Then we
upraised over the dense cloud
layers and a phenomenal view surprised us.
Ash fall under the eruption cloud
The first view from a flight distance of ca. 6 km was
phenomenal. Never before I saw something tar pitch black-
this was the first thought of all. Due to the countless
small ash knobs the you can guess what mighty dimention
this plume had. The estimated height was about 5000m
near the vents and futher up to 7-8 km. The lenght was
not to realise, but who can watch out for more than 1000
km. Up to this time no one could know that this eruption
of the 'bad Eyja' would close nearly the whole European
air space. First North Scandinavia, then great Britain,
the German, French and Spanisch airspaces were declared
to a flight free zone. At Saturday the ash cloud moved
with success over North Italy. Measured distance about
2750 Km. Not bad. Anyhow we had a funny feeling on the
island, many other not.
During the decend flight you could see the landscape under
the eruption center.
The glacier area under neath the eruption vent.
Still in the afternoon the Iceland TV documented mighty
meltwater falls at the outlet tunnels of the glacier. Right
photo: The big basin (1,5km) underneath the glacier of the
Eyjafjalla was damping the two floods and may preserved the
population in the western lands of a big lahar.
Flight over the flooded land during the 1rst flood at the 4.14.2010
Greetings from the glacier. The second flood at the
4/16/2010 was three times stronger than the first. Artifical
collecting ponds intercepted with success the melting ice
water mass. From the long way of 25km most ice boulders were
completly
rounded and were 'discarded' in bullets up to.1,5m.
This gave the landscape a new shapening.
And here the main protection target. The ring highway
A1 surrounds the whole Iceland. This was also the only connection to
the south.
The dikes near the bridge were opened by carterpillars to
detour the pressing floods for saving the important bridge
construction.
The big meltwater mass pored over the floodland and deformed the
terrain.
Over 25km was the distance fron the glacier outlets to the
bridge.
Ice aesthetic. Hard to believe that a volcano was the reason
After the ash in the southern region,
(4/21/10)
Since the 20th of April the reconstruction of the dikes
by the civil forces
to
the A1 highway bridge was done and the connection was able to the southern
region. The first time we could see the 'other side'. Black,
with a thin layer of new snow the Eyjajallajöküll glacier
was offered to us.
Due to the volcanic activity, villages, farms and grazes
were covered within a 5cm ash layer.
Annoying dust removal on streets and buildings.
Only a few kilomtres before the ash track the world seemed
to be O.K. But inside the ash falling region the farmers had
big problems to fed the animals. No gras halm was discovered
on the grazes.
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