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Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Volcano tourism is booming, but is it too risky?
On June 2, 2025, Italy's Mount Etna, one of Earth's most active volcanoes, erupted again, releasing what experts called a 'lava fountain' that sent tourists rushing downhill to safety. In late March 2021, thousands of people in Iceland hiked into the Geldingadalur valley to watch fiery lava splutter and spill from the crater of the Fagradalsfjall volcano after it erupted for the first time in nearly 800 years. As white ash clouds puffed above trails of glowing, molten rock inching through craggy black stones, some visitors took photos, others sat in quiet awe, and a few toasted marshmallows over the lava flows. Photographer Chris Burkard, who captured the eruption for National Geographic, was transfixed by the ominous-but-beautiful landscape too. 'It was mesmerizing,' he says. 'I never thought something as simple as molten rock would get me this excited.' The aftermath of eruptions has created famously fertile ground for tourism. Japanese tourists have bunked at onsen ryokans (hot springs inns) in villages near volcanoes since the 8th century. The ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, preserved by a blanket of ashes when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79, lured countless sightseers on the European Grand Tour in the 17th and 18th centuries. But the steam, crackle, and pop of active volcanoes has an allure all its own. 'They're one of the most primeval forces of nature that we can observe,' says Benjamin Hayes, chief of interpretation and education for Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. 'You feel the power of Mother Earth near this lifeblood of the planet.' Traveling to an active volcano isn't without risks and ethical questions. It can be the thrill of lifetime—or a fatal attraction. Before you get fired up to see one, here's what you should know. In the last decade, volcano tourism has boomed, fueled in part by social media and so-called 'lava chasers.' They seek legendary, photogenic smoking spots like Mount Vesuvius (and the other two dozen-plus active volcanic sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List). In the United States, several national parks feature active volcanoes, including Mount Rainier in Washington State, Lassen Peak in California, and the Yellowstone Caldera in Wyoming. The day after the Island of Hawaii's Mount Kilauea erupted on December 20, 2020, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park saw a sharp spike in visitors. Many of the 8,000 guests were locals, but the park also saw a steady increase of out-of-state visitors as COVID-19 travel restrictions eased. Depending on the place, travelers can take lava boat tours, hop helicopter trips over calderas, surf down the slopes of a volcano, or even walk to the edge of the lava lake. But these endeavors come with risk. Eruptions often produce poisonous gasses (e.g., sulfur dioxide, present at Fagradalsfjall) that can damage your lungs. Between 2010 and 2020, at least 1,143 people have been killed in volcanic explosions, most recently near New Zealand's Whakaari/White Island volcano, which suddenly erupted December 9, 2019, killing 22 tourists and injuring 25 others. (Visiting a volcano? Here's how to stay safe.) Yet, these casualties seem to have fueled curiosity rather than deterred tourism. Instead of steering clear of erupting volcanoes, sensation seekers are drawn to disaster areas—a trend expected to continue after the pandemic. Volcanic eruptions happen when there's an increase in magma-static pressure or a shift in tectonic plates, which can also spur earthquakes. Sometimes, erosion or melting glaciers slowly move the earth and eventually spur eruptions; other times sudden landslides trigger them. Volcanic activities are monitored by scientific observatories around the world, so blow ups are rarely a surprise. (For a bit of armchair volcanology, use the Smithsonian Institution's online active eruption tracker.) 'If you know some of the basics, you can observe eruptions fairly safely,' says Rosaly M.C. Lopes, a volcanologist and planetary geologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. 'We're lucky that the most beautiful eruptions—in Hawaii, Iceland, and Stromboli, Italy—are also not the most explosive ones.' Author of the Volcano Adventure Guide, Lopes says it's important to know the type of volcanoes you're visiting. The volatility of a given site depends on its lava: thin and runny lava flows out of the volcano slowly, while thick and viscous lava makes it difficult for gas to escape, resulting in more explosive (and possibly, deadly) eruptions. Knowing which sort you are dealing with could potentially save your life. When Italy's Mount Etna erupted in 1987, two tourists were killed. Lopes was only a mile away on a research trip when it happened. 'If it's a volcano like Etna, and there is a sudden explosion, look up and see where these rock fragments are going to land,' she says. 'But you don't run; you dodge them. And after fragments land, you run.' On the opposite spectrum, during the sudden eruption of New Zealand's Whakaari/White Island volcano, Lopes says those who survived were likely the ones who sprinted the fastest. 'Some people stayed to take photos. I think some just got caught and couldn't run fast enough,' she says. 'But that is a dangerous volcano, and volcanologists knew it could have a sudden explosion.' There are more than 1,500 active volcanoes in 81 countries. For the hundreds of millions of people who reside near them, they're just a part of daily life, like bad traffic or frequent rain. One of Japan's most active volcanos, Sakurajima in Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu, erupts every four to 24 hours. 'The people of Kagoshima don't even bother looking up when Sakurajima erupts, it happens so often,' says Alex Bradshaw, director of Overseas Communications of Kagoshima Prefecture. (Learn what it's like to live beside a volcano.) The relationship between Sakurajima and the locals is reciprocal. Fertile soil near the volcano helps Kagoshima grow its famed daikon radishes and tiny komikan oranges. 'Without Sakurajima there would be no Kagoshima. It's the symbol of our city, and the people here view it as a protective god,' says Naoto Maesako, owner of Kagoshima City's Yogan Yaki restaurant, where vegetables, kurobuta pork, and wagyu beef are cooked on hot plates made from local lava. 'We feel that Sakurajima sees us through typhoons and other disasters safely. It's our history right in front of us, and we can see the same smoldering scene as our ancestors did.' In Hawaii, the connection between volcanoes and residents is a part of the islands' origin story. Ancient Hawaiian chants refer to Pele, goddess of volcanoes and fire, as 'she who shapes the sacred land.' 'The Hawaiian people have been here and have flourished for more than 1,000 years,' says Hayes. 'It's impossible not to be connected deeply with generations of cherished stories, ancestors, and family connection to the 'aina—the land.' Some volcano tourism veers close to disaster or dark tourism. In 2010, 353 people died and more than 400,000 people lost their homes when Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupted. Soon after, tour companies popped up specifically to offer excursions to the ash-buried villages. It is an echo of the human casts and imprints at Pompeii, which reveal a terrifying account of the final days of its residents. (Learn about 'dark tourism'' and why travelers are drawn to disasters.) In 2018, Mount Kīlauea's continued eruptions destroyed approximately 600 homes, as well as roads, farms, and ranches, on the Island of Hawaii. That May, while fires still raged in neighborhoods, tourist spending increased by 3.3. percent to $173.9 million. Hospitality companies had to balance meeting traveler's needs with sensitivity towards affected residents. Ross Birch, executive director of the Island of Hawaii Visitors Bureau, encourages tourists who are curious about volcanoes to stick to the national park. 'It's a great place to learn about the volcanoes,' Birch says. 'Anything outside of that, you might cross into private property and potentially end up in someone's backyard.' Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) geologist Frank Trusdell recalls that within 24 hours of the Mauna Loa eruption in 1984, plane tickets to the Island of Hawaii were sold out. 'Everybody wanted to come to see the eruption,' he says. Scientists like Trusdell understand why people are drawn to volcanoes, and they believe this helps raise aware and interest in volcanology. 'Every time you go somewhere that you see a geological process—even if it's fairly tame volcanos like Yellowstone geysers—it awakens your curiosity,' says Lopes. 'It gives you a much greater respect for our planet.' This story originally published on April 2, 2021. It has been updated.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Hope to Save Iceland's Best Wave All But Lost
It's now or never for Iceland's surf community as the right point of Þorlákshöfn, or Thorli as it is known, faces irreversible destruction at the hands of human development. The wave is one of the only consistent waves on the island's swell battered coastline. Located less than an hour from the capital of Reykjavik, the wave at Thorli is a section of land that juts out from the southwest facing coastline, positioned perfectly for the swells that pulse up from the Atlantic to wrap around its rocky headland and reel toward shore. On the inside is a harbor, the only one on Iceland's southern coast and despite a four year campaign by the surf community an expansion that will reclaim the land on the inside section of the wave looks set to go ahead. A study has shown that the planned development will ruin the majority of the surfable area of the wave. What the area that will impact the wave is set to actually be used for remains unclear as conflicting reports are made by those involved in the development. In early February the project was given the green light, prompting surfers to gather on the rocks in the mid winter weather to physically block the destruction. A court appeal was filed, requesting an environmental impact assessment to be undertaken which led to a two week halt in the project. In a somewhat nebulous approach, the development that impacts the wave is part of a larger port expansion, but separate development applications have been made for each individual part of the development, meaning the environmental impact assessment requirements that would apply in a single development of that scale have been skirted. Thus, the surf community's appeal has been thrown out and any hope of stopping the development is disappearing fast. Australian surf photographer Steve Wall, who is based in Iceland, has been part of the surf community resistance to the development. 'In Iceland it's very, very tough to stop any development,' he said, 'the rules here are super relaxed compared to the rest of the world and it's more a case of rather than the environmental impact regulations being hard to fulfill because they're strong, they're hard to fulfill because they require a lot of cost and a lot of influence. So someone that has resources and money can basically do whatever they want within the parameters of the law quite easily and it's very frustrating.'Over the last 10 years Iceland has made its way into the global surfing consciousness, with intrepid, cold-tolerant surfers making the journey to its volcanic shores in pursuit of the perfection photographers like Chris Burkard have made famous. Thorli has been at the heart of the burgeoning surf scene, offering a mechanical right hander that is relatively accessible compared to the rugged roads in and out of other spots along the coast. Backdropped by volcanoes and enjoyed by locals under the midnight sun, the point is a truly unique surf spot. But, just as surfing has started to take hold locally, this diamond in the rough could be set to be taken from them. At an institutional level, surfing is not yet fully understood in Iceland. A fear of the wild Atlantic still prevails in communities as families report members across multiple generations taken by the swells that thrash the shores and cliffs. For the average person in Iceland, the idea of going out into the ocean to ride its swells is a dance with danger far beyond the imagination. 'I think that is almost the biggest thing behind the scenes, that 90% of Iceland lives by the ocean, towns are coastal, but nobody looks to the ocean as a playground.' Steve described, 'It's a place to be feared. And, I guess we respect the ocean, but it's still a playground to us. They respect it and fear it, and they keep it at arms length.' With Thorli being the only wave that people living locally can get out for a paddle at afterwork or on the weekend, its loss will mean the everyday surfer won't really have a place they can go regularly. Other surf spots in Iceland require resources and time to travel to, with lesser consistency and more vulnerability to wild weather. 'For [the community at Thorli] it's just a simple question of 'okay are we going to build this valid industrial project that will create x y and z jobs and bring more business to the town or are we going to give this random thing that 30 people do a chance?'' Steve explained. 'It means this town is going to get zero business from any surfer anywhere in the world, local or foreign, and surfing is going to become the domain of tourists in Iceland.' Steve said. Brimbrettafélag Íslands, the Icelandic Surfing Association, board member Ólafur Pálsson echoed this sentiment to Visir: "This wave in Þorlákshöfn is actually a fundamental prerequisite for surfing to thrive in Iceland. It works both in high tide and low tide, maintains a large size and is also good for beginners, so this is the place for the grassroots of the sport to start surfing." With legal avenues exhausted, the only hope left is if someone with influence who understands the importance of the wave can wield it to stop the private developer from carrying on with their plans. Meanwhile, the surf community will be forced back to the rocks to do what they can to stop the destruction.
