World

Iceland Scrambles to Shelter Residents Made Homeless by Volcanic Eruption

To house the evacuees of Grindavik, the Icelandic town where lava poured into some houses last week after a volcanic eruption, a former prime minister proposed building a new town from scratch. A politician said Airbnbs around the island nation should be restricted to make room for the residents. And a radio host suggested turning away asylum seekers to focus resources on helping “refugees” from Grindavik.

“To evacuate 1 percent of the nation,” Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir said, “is a major challenge.”

Grindavik, a fishing town in southwestern Iceland, is still under the threat of volcanic eruptions, and experts consider it uninhabitable in the near future. About 3,700 people lived there before the eruption, a significant number of residents for Iceland, whose total population is only 400,000. The authorities are scrambling to house the residents and contain their financial losses, and the issue is dominating the national debate.

Residents of the town are living in hotel rooms, in summer cottages, in temporary rental apartments or are being hosted by family members.

Thorgerdur Eliasdottir, 67, a restaurant worker from Grindavik, said that she and her cat had moved five times since the town was first evacuated in November. She said that she planned to move again soon, to an apartment that she will be able to rent for three months.

“I have an old timber house in Grindavik,” she said in a telephone interview. “I wish the government would simply put it on a car and drive it to a safe location.”

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.


Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.


Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Related Articles

Back to top button