Angus, wasn't there a town in Iceland that managed to save their homes from a lava flow by continuously hosing it down with cold sea water?
stand corrected, it was on the island of Heimaey in 1973.
(Image removed from quote.)
ack-ack
Nice picture finding.
This is actually not far from me, I can see it out the window, It was also my home port in my short life as a fisherman and a ship's cook
The islanders evacuated in a whiff, then some of them and many others returned later to fight the fires and the lava-flow with sea-water. The US-Navy generously lent several high-power pumps for the job.
The fight was succesful, a good part of the town was saved, and the lavaflow was stopped before it managed to close the port. Now the port is even better than before (it is actually a very good port), sheltered by the lava wall.
Our eruption is increasing gradually, and some hill is building up in the ambition of becoming a mountain. Lava is starting to flow down some ravines nearby.
The last eruption in this area took some 2 years, and ended up by triggering the bad neighbour. Our concern there would the massive amount of ashes scattered over a large area, - no way of telling where, since it all depends on the wind direction.
They will reduce or destroy crops, and poison drinking water, so the farmers have a heavy fight on their hands. Oddly enough, there are no precautions there in the routine (such as extra supplies of harvest). There might be a desperate last-minute boost in feed production this summer, at least if I have it my way, just forwarded my concern to the main sources......
New pic here:
