Page 33 - All About History - Issue 08-14

Eye Witness

THE VILLAGE ERUPTION, ICELAND, 23 JANUARY 1973

Written by Erlingur Einarsson

ÓLAFUR GRÄNZ Almost instantly, a wall

Ólafur Gränz is a ‘‘
former carpenter
and book
publisher from of fire spewed out of the
Iceland. He lived
for 50 years on
the island of Heimaey, running
a carpentry shop, car rental ground and we were hit by
and a tourist boat excursion
are a group of small islands south of Iceland. ’’
business. He later became an
international book publisher,
but is retired today. immense heat

estmannaeyjar (Westman Islands in English)
Guðnason, phoned me and asked if I wanted to go for a
pier walk, as we often did, partly on account of sharing
Shortly after Iceland’s settlement, the biggest of the eve of 23 January, my childhood friend, Hjálmar
those, Heimaey, became home to fishermen and ownership of a small fishing boat at the time. He worked
Vtheir families, ultimately growing to a village of at Vestmannaeyjaradio [the island’s radio messaging
more than 5,000 people. The islands were formed by a station] at the time and his shift had ended at midnight.
series of volcanic eruptions several millennia ago but, I was tucked into bed by then but was ultimately
apart from the formation of new island Surtsey in 1963, persuaded to go out.”
the inhabitants had never been seriously bothered by They took a walk down to the harbour and the
Iceland’s prolific – and infamous – volcanic activity. On marina, where they chanced upon their colleague,
23 January 1973, that would change spectacularly. another fisherman: “After a short ‘shop talk’ with him,
Ólafur Gränz had lived in Vestmannaeyjar (the town we decided to head out for Urdarviti, despite it being
is named after the islands themselves) for his whole life pitch black.”
and would be the first witness to the closest encounters For a couple of days leading up to 23 January, seismic
a European town would have with an volcano in the monitoring stations had been picking up increased
20th Century. “On the morning of 21 January 1973 I seismic activity around Heimaey, but they were too weak
took a walk over to the eastern part of the island,” he to be felt by the residents, except the largest ones which
recalls. After arriving at Urdarviti, one of the island’s measured up to 2.7 magnitude on the Richter scale.
lighthouses, he decided to hike across Helgafell, a long- However, as earthquakes are a frequent occurrence in
dormant volcano posing as a hill overlooking the village. Iceland the local population ignored them. The only ones
It had last erupted 5,000 years ago: “When I arrived at paying them any attention were those monitoring the
Helgafell’s slopes I noticed that the earth had sunken seismic readings and they found that the readings were
across an area I knew very well. There was a beetroot focused around Heimaey and becoming progressively
garden there, which my mates and I had sometimes shallower and more concentrated with each tremor.
grabbed a few beetroots from when I passed through The two friends had just passed the old church house
– with the owners’ permission, of course. The ground on the outskirts of town, when the island decided to
had sunken by about 80 centimetres (30 inches) and I wake up from its 5,000-year slumber in impressive
wondered why I hadn’t noticed this on our many travels fashion. “We were startled by very loud rumbling about
through the area before.” Having hiked higher into 100-200 meters (330-660 feet) from us,” Ólafur says.
Helgafell’s slopes he looked back: “The sunken ground “Almost instantly, a wall of fire spewed out of the ground
looked like a dried-up riverbed in the shape of an ‘S’.” and we were hit by immense heat. A nearby herd of
As it turns out, this would be the exact spot an horses was filled with panic and they ran away into all
eruption would crack and shatter the ground less than directions. For a while we just stood there taking in this
40 hours later. And he would be right there to watch terrifying spectacle which was growing by the second.
it happen. He remembers that, “Just after midnight on The fissure kept on ripping open and expanding toward
33