The Icelandic coastguard has now completed their work of stopp­ing an oil spill from El Grillo in Seyð­is­fjörður. A fence will then be set up this sum­mer, but the fence is intended to catch oil that could leak out as weather beg­ins to warm.

It was the crew of the patrol ship Freyja together with the divers of the Coast Guard who worked on the project at the end of last month. The leak that came from two open­ings on the tanks of the oil tanker El Grillo, which sank during the Second World War in Seyð­is­fjörður, had to be stopped. According to the Coast Guard’s website, the tanks were boar­ded with concrete, but it is stated that these were not the same open­ings as were filled about two years ago.

It took a considerable amount of time to clean the tanks, where some debris and sedi­ment had accumulated, but this was necessary before concrete was poured into the open­ings. It also proved difficult for the divers that the open­ings were parti­ally under the ship’s superstructure. But the concrete held, and it was possi­ble to complete the project successfully.

The website states that a small amount of oil, on the other hand, is stuck under a footbridge that runs over the ship’s tank. A slight leakage is expected as it warms up. A special fence has been designed and built for Múlaþing, for the pur­pose of capturing such oil. The Coast Guard will ass­ist in install­ing the fence this sum­mer.

The great photos above were taken by Guð­mundur St. Valdi­mars­son, a boat­man on board Freyja.

This article was orig­inally publ­is­hed in Icelandic by Björgvin Gunn­ars­son.