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Article: STOPPING MOTHER NATURE.(preventing lava flow from destroying a town in Iceland)
- Article from:
- The Evening Standard (London, England)
- Article date:
- May 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Carus Publishing Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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On the fourteenth day, the force of the eruption increased. The liquid sprays of lava reached heights of around a thousands feet. Complete pitch-blackness enveloped the town at noon. Five million tons of lava were now in motion, closing the distance to the harbor wall. All ships were ordered away. The harbor was forsaken. On this day, February 5, known thereafter as Black Monday, virtually everyone on the island presumed that the battle was over -- before it had really begun.
In 1963, residents of Heimaey, an island off the southern coast of Iceland, had watched Surtsey rise from the sea. When, in January 1973, they felt tremors and saw flames in the eastern sky, ...