The Icelandic Meteorological Office has completed a new risk assessment due to avalanches in Flateyri. This was reported in Indicator this morning. The new assessment has placed about thirty houses in danger zone C – the highest danger level. An additional seventy have reached the point of departure.
Two large avalanches fell on Flateyri overnight last January, but the third fell on Súgandafjörður. Following this, Grapevine wrote an article about the sad reality of avalanches in Iceland and reviewed the 1995 avalanches in Flateyri and Súðvík. People living in danger zone C are considered ten times more likely to die in an avalanche than a car accident.
Neither Vísir nor Fréttablaðið report on which houses are in danger or what effect the new risk assessment will have on the residents of Flateyri. On the other hand Fréttablaðið spoke to Tómas Jóhannesson at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, who said that “When conditions become very bad, there is a possibility that evacuation will have to be done to ensure safety.”
The areas above Flateyri were cited as a special risk and it was also pointed out that the defenses above the town would turn avalanches into the harbor, which meant that all avalanches would do great damage to Flateyri.
If the budget proposal is successful, the budget for the avalanche fund will be almost ISK 2.7 billion next year – which is an increase of ISK 1.6 billion from this year. These funds are intended both for the construction and improvement of avalanche protection and for the purchase of residential housing in dangerous areas.
A similar risk assessment is carried out in Ísafjörður, Bíldudalur, Siglufjörður, Ólafsfjörður and Neskaupstaður.
Source: The Nordic Page