[HN Gopher] Iceland declares state of emergency over volcanic er...
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Iceland declares state of emergency over volcanic eruption threat
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 33 points
Date : 2023-11-10 21:51 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Ok I read it, what does declaring a state of emergency achieve if
| an eruption happens?
| perlgeek wrote:
| I don't know about Iceland in particular, but often state of
| emergency makes it easier to...
|
| * shut off roads or regions
|
| * use the military for aid
|
| * access emergency funds
|
| * quickly do things that otherwise require lots of bureaucracy
|
| * signal to others that shit is dire
| LinuxBender wrote:
| People can be in a higher state of preparedness, such as
| packing food and water in a vehicle and be ready to get outta
| Dodge. And I'm just guessing but in some places that means
| local governments can call more emergency responders to active
| duty but no idea if that applies here.
| hugi wrote:
| Pretty much it. We're at a "get people and services ready for
| a potential disaster" stage. And it's sort of mislabeled by
| the Guardian. We have three stages for events like this;
| "uncertainty", "alert" and "emergency". The state that's been
| declared is "alert" not "emergency".
|
| https://www.almannavarnir.is/english/general-
| information/eme...
|
| Although sitting here and feeling my house rock back and
| forth, with the earthquake map looking like seen in the link
| below, I don't think it's too long until state of emergency.
|
| https://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes
| pierat wrote:
| Not quite the same thing. We've already been prepping for this.
|
| 3 days ago, we got completely remote control of the Grindavik
| geothermal facility. There's also a backup system installed by
| Orkan (petrol company).
|
| Roads are also shut down to Grindavik to prevent tourists from
| being dumb.
|
| The Blue Lagoon did terrible, and only yesterday shut down, 3
| days after the police chief said it was grossly irresponsible.
| Money grabbers love grabbing.
|
| Air traffic will only really shut down if there's a great deal
| of gasses or smoke. Magma is magma, and isn't a big deal as
| long as people or animals aren't in the way.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I don't know exactly how it works in Iceland but most state of
| emergency gives the executive branch unrestricted power for
| certain things, aka bypass Congress/parliament. It gives
| quicker response time, and allows the executive branch to do
| stuff like closing roads, moving finances, or deploying the
| military beyond most laws.
| empiredawn wrote:
| Exactly
| civilitty wrote:
| _> Since 2021, three eruptions have taken place on the Reykjanes
| peninsula, in March 2021, August 2022 and July 2023. Those three
| were located far from any infrastructure or populated areas._
|
| Just another Friday in Iceland!
|
| _> Also nearby is the Svartsengi geothermal plant, the main
| supplier of electricity and water to 30,000 residents on the
| Reykjanes peninsula. It has contingency plans in place to protect
| the plant and its workers in the event of an eruption._
|
| Anyone have any idea what those contingency plans would be other
| than emergency shutdown and hope something is left to save
| afterwards? Or do they actually go in and put dampers and stuff
| on turbines to make sure they don't bounce around unnecessarily?
| pierat wrote:
| Yep. They installed remote controls for the whole plant 3 days
| ago, along with backup generators.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Interestingly, you can see the ~30-40MW dip in geothermal
| generation recently. Any webcams at the generation facility
| online and publicly available?
|
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/IS?wind=false&solar=fal.
| ..
| bobthepanda wrote:
| So if this happened a week ago, then this would've been
| worse? What fortuitous timing.
| ortusdux wrote:
| More details from the Icelandic Meteorological Office:
|
| https://en.vedur.is/about-imo/news/a-seismic-swarm-started-n...
|
| The precise uplift data is fascinating!
| bookofjoe wrote:
| >UPDATES: Civil Protection Alert Phase Declared, Magma Tunnel
| Opening Toward Surface
|
| https://grapevine.is/news/2023/11/10/updates-state-of-emerge...
| bookofjoe wrote:
| >Seismic activity in Reykjanes
|
| There is an ongoing Alert Phase on the Reykjanes peninsula, due
| to seismic activity.
|
| https://reykjanes.almannavarnir.is/en
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Live feed with earthquake updates
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=804nPrAUAxg
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(page generated 2023-11-10 23:00 UTC)