Grindavíkurvegur Road to be opened this weekend

The construction of the new Grindavíkurvegur Road is well underway and the plan is to open it this weekend.

This is what Úlfar Lúðvíksson, the police chief in Suðurnes, said in an interview with mbl.is, after lava covered the road during the last eruption in the Sundhnúkagígar crater row, which began on November 20 and ended last Monday.

"The plan has been to complete the work by the weekend and then these routes to and from Reykjanesbraut Road will open," Lúðvíksson says.

He adds that a similar number of people stay in the town every night, or in about 50 houses, and then operations began again at the Blue Lagoon on Friday after a closure of more than two weeks. Visitors to the lagoon gather in Grindavík and are driven to the site from there in shuttles.

"I have heard nothing but that it has gone well," says the police chief.

Asked if there has been more traffic in Grindavík since the eruption, he says:

“There is no other traffic than the one going to the Blue Lagoon,” he says. Lúðvíksson doesn’t say much about tourists, except for those who visit the lagoon and stay at the Northern Light Inn hotel.

“There have been some tourists walking from the parking lot to Mt Fagradalsfjall, but their interest wanes when the eruption ends. There have been no problems with these tourists.”

Work on the defense walls continues

Lúðvíksson says he has not heard of strangers entering uninhabited houses, but the Icelandic Safety Centre is carrying out some surveillance in the town, together with the police.

Work is still underway to expand and strengthen the defense walls at Svartsengi, and Lúðvíksson says that it will be necessary to protect the power plant if the eighth eruption since last November breaks out. There are clear signs of inflation in the Svartsengi area, indicating that magma accumulation beneath the area has started again.