In Sýnar’s evening news was shown from the fields in Hafnarfjörður and the industrial area in Kapelluhrauni, but they are said to be vulnerable to lava flow. They stand on young lava that flowed after settlement, but Kapelluhraun dates from the 12th century and Hellnahraun from the 10th century.
The Norwegian Meteorological Agency’s main conclusion is not really complicated. Where lava has flowed, lava can be expected to flow again.
The mayor welcomes the reports.
“This is a long-term risk assessment and not a forecast. So this is of course something that is long-term but gives us the opportunity to examine all of our infrastructure, organization and future planning,” says Valdimar Víðisson, mayor of Hafnarfjörður.
This morning, the town authorities held a meeting about the lava flow reports with representatives of all candidates. But will there be consensus on these issues within the town council?
“The key issue in this matter is the safety of the population. Because I think the safety of the population should not be a political issue.”
Consensus is needed here, and that’s why we had this meeting with all candidates so that everyone is on the same page with the right information to be able to get the right message out to the public,” the mayor replies.
The next steps were discussed at today’s town council meeting.
“We certainly need to start, and we call for a conversation with the state, of course, about countermeasures, which need to be started. We need to simulate such defenses. We need to put them into models and see how they can best be placed in our municipality, so that it will be clear where they should be erected when there is an eruption.”
However, the mayor does not foresee that plans for new neighborhoods in lava areas will be dropped, as you can hear here in Sýnar’s TV news:
-Do you need to revise it?
“I don’t think we need to revise it. We already have that plan in place.”
However, we need to look at how we react in the event of events, in the long term.
So we have the report now in our hands precisely to examine and evaluate how we can respond in terms of countermeasures. And what we do to revise the existing and future structure.”
-But can reports of this kind lead to the fact that real estate prices in the mentioned areas could decrease?
“Such a discussion has of course come up. But of course I hope that it won’t happen. Because this report is made precisely for the purpose of taking action to ensure the infrastructure and safety of residents in Hafnarfjörður,” answers the mayor Valdimar Víðisson.
The main points from the Met Office’s risk assessment were described in Sýnar’s TV news last night:
