Dust Over Iceland

In my last post I said that the last two weeks had been interesting and I cannot avoid commenting on the volcanic dust saga. It all started with an eruption by an Icelandic volcano that was unknown, unmemorable and unpronounceable. For exactness I will tell you that the volcano was [and is] Eyjafjallajoekull. The eruption started on Thursday 15th April and rapidly it became a problem. Iceland exists as a result of volcanic eruptions and is permanently sizzling away with hot springs and occasional spectacular volcanoes. The problem with this eruption was apparently, that the volcanic lava was blasted up through a thick layer of ice and snow and that this caused secondary explosions of water into steam and formed a vast cloud made up of particles of very abrasive sand which, it has been alleged, presented a serious risk to aircraft jet engines. Examples were given of previous incidents of aeroplanes getting into trouble when they encountered volcanic dust at high altitudes. The dust cloud drifted south and east and ultimately caused governments to shut down the airports across most of Europe this side of Moscow. Of course the total ceasing of all flights left potential passengers stranded overseas in foreign lands or unable to depart the UK for holidays or business trips. Many world statesmen were unable to attend the funeral of the Polish president killed in the recent air crash when going to Russia. Many people were, we were told, "devastated". Devastated these days is a modern word for mildly inconvenienced. Governments probably over-reacted but if the technologists believed there was a serious risk, then it is difficult to see that governments had any option but to introduce a complete shut down until more was known. After five days most airports re-opened and still the cloud rumbles on - though with less ferocity. Iceland is notorious for having dodgy volcanoes - as well as banks. One of the worst recorded eruptions was at the Laki volcano during the summer of 1783. This eruption was about one hundred times more powerful than the recent eruption and over a period of five months blasted 120,000,000 tonnes of toxic gases and ash into the atmosphere. This drifted southwards and covered the whole of Britain with poisonous gases that caused choking and ruined some of the harvests. By the end of the year about 23,000 people in Britain alone had died of respiratory diseases as a result. In some parts of Eastern England almost whole families of labourers were wiped out. The biggest sufferers were young men employed in agriculture and working hard outdoors breathing in great lungfuls of the toxic mixture. The people knew something was wrong; they could see the dark clouds and could taste the pollution - but no one understood what was causing their problems. The increased death rate was one of the worst in modern Britain. Could that happen again? Yes! And then people could re-learn the true meaning of the word devastated.

Iceland is a troublesome little country.

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