Thanks to photographer Eggert Johannesson, who captured this impressive drone video yesterday, you can see how dark and muddy the Skafta River, South Iceland, looks these days during the glacial flood that began on September 1st. In the video, you will see an old bridge over the river, which is almost submerged.
At present, the flood is on the decline. The maximum discharge from Mount Sveinstindur was about 1,500 m3 per second on Tuesday morning, according to Einar Hjørleifsson, a natural hazard specialist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office. According to the latest data from the Meteorological Office, published at 8:30 am, Sveinstindur is currently discharged at less than 600 m3 per second.
It will take some time before the discharge of the river reaches equilibrium and flood waters are expected to continue to spread in the lowlands in the coming days.
Gisli Halldour Magnusson, a farmer from Ytri-Ásar, is not overly concerned about the impact of this flood, but he tells Morgunblaðið that in large floods like 2015, the clay and mud left on the vegetated land could pose a huge threat to livestock, and also damage vegetation.
The mud, he says, is so thick that animals often get stuck in it.