“It was as like being on another planet,” commented Reynir Ragnarsson in Vík, who was traveling in the area around the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull yesterday morning with geologists and taking samples from the ash cloud.

Kirkjubaejarklaustur. One of the towns that have been subject to ash fall. Photo by Páll Stefánsson.

“I have never before experienced the darkness found in the middle of the night on a sunny day,” Ragnarsson described to visir.is. Outside of the cloud, Ragnarsson said the quality of daylight had been peculiar and unreal. “The rivers appeared black,” he said.

Ragnarsson is a former police inspector and road improvements supervisor in Vík and has often been at work when glacial floods and other disasters in the Skaftafell region have occurred in recent decades.

Few are as experienced as he at driving through sandstorms and other episodes of extreme weather conditions in this area. “It is unlike anything else I have seen,” Ragnarsson said.

Click here to watch a picture from the ash fall on visir.is and here for further information on the ash fall.

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