Not always possible to save people if they get stuck outside the marked path
If people get stuck outside the marked route to the eruption site, the only way to get them is by helicopter. However, that might not even be possible in all cases. mbl.is/Árni Sæberg
There were seven cases of people who had been injured or just exhausted at the eruption site yesterday and last night, according to Jón Þór Víglundsson, information officer for ICE-SAR Landsbjörg.
There were probably around three thousand people who went to the eruption site yesterday and last night. Víglundsson says that it was about 3AM in the night when the current of people began to return from the eruption site. There were also instances of people not being properly prepared for this walk.
"If people fall down, they’ll burn"
Rescue teams were successful in coming to the aid of people, even though they did not necessarily take a marked route or go to the viewing area.
“Going to the viewing point, you’ve walked out of the biggest smoke, there’s a lot of smoke coming from the moss fires around the eruption site, but people want to go nearby,” says Víglundsson.
“It’s clear that if people go into a lava field and get into trouble, no one is coming the same way to save them. The only way is to get people out with a helicopter, which might not even be possible. In the case of rescuing people wo go into a new lava field and get stuck, it is impossible to save them, and if people fall down, they’ll burn.”
Hear sounds like a heartbeat
Six teams of rescue teams have been in the area at all times in the past two nights, both assisting with closure posts and in the area itself.
“The most interesting thing during the night shift recorded was that there were a few people who came to the rescue services and announced that they heard knocking sounds from the earth, and one of them described it like a heartbeat.”
He says he is not sure whether people are describing seismic murmurs or quakes or whether these sounds are just coming from the lave and the movement in the area, but “it was down in the lava field.”
