A fierce rainstorm passed eastwards over Iceland yesterday leaving considerable damage in its wake. The nature reserve at Thórsmörk in the southern highlands was drowned by water and large parts of the road leading into the area disappeared.
“It is simply a natural catastrophe,” Berglind Guttormsdóttir, cabin guard for the Iceland Touring Association (FÍ) in Langidalur valley in Thórsmörk, told Morgunbladid. At 6 am yesterday the valley looked like an ocean, Guttormsdóttir said.
Another cabin guard, Broddi Hilmarsson, said it had not been easy driving to Thórsmörk yesterday. “The road is damaged in large territories. Rocks and stones and a total mess.” Sections of road 100 to 500 meters long have simply disappeared.
Roads outside Ísafjördur in the West Fjords and other roads in the region also suffered considerable damage because of the rainstorm. “It is among the worst [weather] that we have seen in many, many years,” said Eidur B. Thoroddsen, operational manager of the Road Administration in Patreksfjördur.
Last night the wind speed reached 47 meters per second at the airstrip in Gjögur in the Strandir region on the eastern West Fjords peninsula.
Click here to read more about the rainstorm.
