"Feeling of total helplessness"
Photo/Sveinbjörn Darri Matthíasson
“It is very difficult to decribe this situation which is very unsettling and threatening. It is a feeling of total helplessness,” Vilhjálmur Árnason, MP for the Independence Party and a resident of Grindavík, told mbl.is.
At four o’clock this morning, Grindavík was evacuated. The eruption began at 7.57 am, as reported on mbl.is at the same minute. Árnason says he’s feeling numb and kind of feeling like a zombie after the day’s events. He says many residents of Grindavík also feel a huge amount of anxiety. The uncertainty of what will happen is total.
“It’s actually a more bleak scenario than people expected. For thousands of years, there hasn’t been a volcanic fissure so close to Grindavík. We were relying on the geological history – that it wouldn’t happen again.”
Vilhjálmur Árnason, a MP for the Independent Party, is a resident of Grindavík and he says the events of the day are hard to digest and thinks the residents are probably feeling numb faced with lava running into their town. mbl.is/Hallur Már
Government aids residents of Grindavík
The ministers will meet about the situation at five o’clock today. It is clear that Grindavík will not be a place to live in the near future. Árnason believes it is important that the government assist the residents in getting a long-term home.
“We have been living with a lot of uncertainty and concerns about nature. You cannot know what will happen, but you can answer the questions about how the people will be able to rent, buy or provide a long-term home while this is going on,” he says.
Need to stand with the local businesses
Árnason believes that it will be good to live in Grindavík in the future. Therefore, the government needs to stand by Grindavík’s businesses, otherwise the town will not rebuild.
“We’re going to rebuild Grindavík, but it’s going to take longer. It’s also going to take, of course, to stand with the companies and give them answers. The longer the companies are left in uncertainty, the more they will close and leave or permanently move out of town, and the town won’t rebuild without companies, that’s pretty clear,” he says, adding:
“It will be good to live there in the future, but we just need to wait longer for that time given the events of this morning.”
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