Another volcanic eruption feared in Iceland – Seismologists
Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 6:35:44 by Taimoor Tariq
Another volcanic eruption feared in Iceland – Seismologists
Icelanders used to call Hekla mountain a gateway to hell and now, experts are warning of another eruption not from Hekla but from another mountain Katlo which could possibly dwarf the volcanic ash crisis from last year.
Seismologists in Iceland have detected small surges of earthquakes around Katlo. Pall Einarsson is a Geophysics Professor at the University of Iceland and says that “After last year’s ash, we have been notified of patterns since last year and the volcano is still active. There are earthquakes there (at the mountain) everyday so it could go off once without any notice.”
When the volcano erupted in 2010, it brought chaos to Europe’s airspace and many flights around Europe were closed down with passengers forced to wait for the ash to settle down in many airports across Europe.
Mount Katla is considered to be a bigger beast than mount Hekla. Mr. Einarsson suggest that Katla being a bigger mountain can produce ash clouds of more density which would be even more dangerous that Hekla’s because of its proximity to the Icelandic waters.
Seismologists are already working with the community workers at the town of Vik which is close to and has a population of just three hundred people. Evacuation plans have already been drafted but it has been believed that most of the inhabitants might have less than an hour to get as far away from the volcano as they can.
Since the World War II, the European airspace had never been forced to such a big closure. On May 21, 2011, hundreds of travel delays were caused due to the eruption of the Grimsvotn volcano. U.S President Barack Obama famously shortened his visit to Dublin due to that eruption and it is now being feared that the eruption expected in the Katlo region could be an even bigger one.
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Posted by Taimoor Tariq
on Oct 26 2011. Filed under Sci-Tech.
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