Westman Islands

The Westman Islands are a fascinating part of Iceland. We visited the largest island, Heimaey, which has a population of 4,135. The other islands are uninhabited. The Icelandic name for this group of Islands is Vestmannaeyjar. In 1973 the eruption of the Eldfell volcano destroyed many buildings and forced a months-long evacuation of the entire population to mainland Iceland. Approximately one fifth of the town was destroyed before the lava flow was halted by application of 6.8 billion litres of cold sea water. Before the eruption 5300 people lived on Heimaey, 2000 of these moved back immediately after the eruption ended. Slowly more families returned and began to rebuild their community.