After a hearty meal at Restaurant Freynes, complete with fantastic glacial views, we headed back east to our Hostel. We stopped however to view some twisted steel segments of the old bridges that cross the sandur (glacial outwash plain) that lies between the glaciers and the coast. In 1996, an eruption underneath the Vatnajokull icecap caused a jokulhlaup, which is a large flood that occurs when melted ice is released by the ice cap being ‘floated’ by the meltwater. This jokulhlaup released 3000 billion cubic litres of water in a few hours, peaking at 50,000m3/s, and carried icebergs and rocks the size of 3 storey buildings! The bridges were bent like match sticks and the new road bridges now have steel which is almost twice as thick (10 inches) as before to try and reduce the impact of any future eruptions!
CP
