Crack in the dam, Iceland

On the first of August 2005 a group of activists dropped a ban­ner at the Karah­n­jukar Dam Site in Protest abainst all planned Heavey Indus­try in Ice­land..

A paint­ed crack indi­cat­ed the dan­gers of such col­los­al con­struc­tion on a sub­struc­ture already weak­ened by geot­her­mal pres­suresIn 2003 Landsvirk­in­jun’s chief, fridrik Sophus­son, was asked what would hap­pen if there was an Earth­quake under the Dam. “It would burst. A cat­a­sproph­ic wall of water would anni­hi­late every­one in this .…and all the neigh­bour­ing farms wold be swept away.” Though he said “this won’t hap­pen”, sev­er­al days of con­ti­nous Earth­quakes in 2004 sug­gest oth­er­wise pro­test­ers com­ment­ed. The crack is also a sym­bol of sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er Dam Cam­paign­ers glob­al­ly. In 1980 the eco­log­i­cal resis­tance group ‘Earth first’ dropped a 100 metres  ban­ner from Glen Canyon Dam on Col­orado Riv­er (U.S.A.).

Twen­ty years lat­er a strong move­ment is suc­cess­ful­ly chal­leng­ing devel­op­ment and has achived rever­sal of some plans. It is hoped the same will hap­pen here.

In 2001 The nation­al plan­ning agency (NPA) reject­ed plans for Karah­n­jukar because of the“substantial, Irre­versible, neg­a­tive envi­ron­men­tal impact” — yet it is still going ahead.If these projects con­tin­ue, ice­land will and itself destroyed, pol­lut­ed, enslaved to for­eign com­pa­nies and liv­ing with a time­bomb. This action is to high­light the dan­gers of heavy Indus­try, the suc­cess­es of resis­tance in oth­er coun­tries and to call out to the ice­landic peo­ple to join in and defend their coun­try and cul­ture.

The group of activists were detained for 9 hours in Egilsstadir with­out bee­ing for­mal­ly arrest­ed. The cas­es are bee­ing dealt with cur­rent­ly.

Video -http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2005/08/320242.mov

e‑mail: saveingiceland@riseupnet.is
Home­page: http://www.savingiceland.org