Over 50 people were trapped after a landslide

The coastal road has been closed on both sides of Djúpavík after the road was closed on the north side in Reykjarfjörður due to a rock slide and fell apart on the south side in Veiðileysa. At least fifty people were trapped in Djúpavík.

The chief engineer of the Road Administration in Hólmavík says the road at the southern end of the fjord has almost fallen apart due to excessive rain and that this morning it was not clear when it would  be possible to open the north side of the road.

Trapped

"It's closed from the north due to a landslide, and from the south the road split, I don't know exactly what it was, but something has gone wrong," says Eyrún Oddsdóttir at Hotel Djúpavík in an interview with mbl.is.

"We were just locked in, no one could get to us or from us in either direction, but they've started working on this." We sent a man to help in the north."

Excessive rain throughout the night

When were you notified that everything was closed?

"This morning around nine o'clock, maybe a quarter past, when the announcement came from the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management," she replies and adds that the rain had been very heavy throughout the night so the danger of landslides is elevated. This, however, she says is something that the people of Djúpivogur are getting used to.

She points out that it could be difficult to fix the road on steep slopes.

"But we are very used to this, it happens quite regularly. Don't know if this happens every summer, but at least that's about it," she says.

Fixing the road

The Chief Engineer of the Road Works in Hólmavík, Gunnar Númi Hjartarson, says that there was a rock slide on the road from Djúpavík to Gjögri.

"We have a contractor who is releasing a rock landslide that is facing towards Gjögur and on the other side, towards Hólmavík, the road is half torn apart. There is so much wetness in it that we don't know if it will finally fall apart, and that's why I closed the road," he says.

Update:

Just opened the road north of Djúpavík

The Road Administration has just opened Strandaveg from Djúpavík to Gjögri after this morning's rockslide. Strandavegur Road from Bjarnarfjörður to Djúpavík is being repaired and is therefore still closed. It is hoped that the road can be opened by dinner time.

This is what Gunnar Númi Hjartarson, chief engineer at the Road Administration in Hólmavík, says in an interview with mbl.is.

He says that filling in the part of the road from Bjarnarfjörður to Djúpavík that cracked due to wetness is going better than expected.

Encourages people to drive carefully

"They are doing well filling in the hole and it has stopped raining, so it is going a lot faster than I thought." But it's foggy so you can't really see if there's a rock coming from above or not. It just comes slowly," he says.

"I'm hoping it'll be over by dinner time."

He tells us that Strandavegur Road from Djúpavík to Gjögur was not impacted,  but encourages people to drive carefully.