The defence walls built by Nafnlausadalur have been breached by the lava flow coming from the eruption.
On Saturday evening, lava began to flow over the eastern defence wall; the wall in question was about six metres high. At around 3 o’ clock last night, lava began to flow up towards the eight metre western wall.
Bjarki Kaldalón Friis, nature conservation specialist at the Meteorological Office, spoke with Fréttablaðið saying “It is very small. This goes right over the fort and a few meters further. This happened at 03:15.”
Faster than you’d think
Bjarki says that the heaviest lava flow is at the eastern defence wall and it still flows fast down to Nátthagi. At the western wall, the lava has come all the way up to the defence wall and Bjarki thinks it is likely that it will eventually flow over it.
Verkís’ engineer, Hörn Hrafnsdóttir, said yesterday that all construction work on the fortifications had been completed and that the focus was now on monitoring. She considered this an important attempt to try to find out how to react if it starts to erupt in more places.
“Scientists believe that Reykjanes as a whole has been awakened and then we may be getting frequent eruptions on the Reykjanes peninsula up to Hengill. Then there is a lot more to it than just what we are trying to do now, “said Hörn yesterday.
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