Despite repeated warnings and prominent warning signs foreign visitors keep toying with death at the black sand beaches in South Iceland. Local tour guides claim that it seems that every single day foreign travellers are knocked down by the waves as they go too far down the beach.
Read more: Photos: Travellers in grave danger on Reynisfjara beach, narrowly escape being swept away by waves
Last year prominent warning signs were installed at Reynisfjara beach and recently the Icelandic Environment Agency has recently installed new warning signs at Kirkjufjara beach, advising visitors the beach was closed and warning them of the waves.But as the video below shows, these warnings seem to have a very limited effect.
Read more:New warning signs installed by Kirkjufjara beach where German woman drowned on January 9
The traveller in the picture seems to have been hoping to capture a better photograph by getting just a little bit closer to the ocean, actually lying down in the sand. When the wave comes in he just barely manages to get up and run off. His friend who was standing next to him is knocked down.
Local tour guide Teitur Þorkelsson, who shot the video, told the local news site Vísir that the scene in the video is a daily occurrance. No matter how often he warns people, and how prominent the warning signs, he says, there are always some who just don't believe what they are told.
Fortunately for the two the waves weren't more powerful: The danger at the black sand beaches of South Iceland is that the waves can be unpredictable, and they are not all the same size. One in ten, twenty waves can be far larger than those before, crashing much further up the beach. These waves can then pull people out to sea.
Two people have been killed in the past 12 months after they were swept to sea. In January 2015 a 40 year man drowned at Reynisfjara beach, and earlier this month a 47 year old German woman drowned when the waves swept her out to sea at Kirkjufjara beach, which is at the west edge of Reynisfjara. The two beaches are among the most popular tourist destinations in Iceland, located just west of the village of Vík.
Despite repeated warnings and prominent warning signs foreign visitors keep toying with death at the black sand beaches in South Iceland. Local tour guides claim that it seems that every single day foreign travellers are knocked down by the waves as they go too far down the beach.
Read more: Photos: Travellers in grave danger on Reynisfjara beach, narrowly escape being swept away by waves
Last year prominent warning signs were installed at Reynisfjara beach and recently the Icelandic Environment Agency has recently installed new warning signs at Kirkjufjara beach, advising visitors the beach was closed and warning them of the waves.But as the video below shows, these warnings seem to have a very limited effect.
Read more:New warning signs installed by Kirkjufjara beach where German woman drowned on January 9
The traveller in the picture seems to have been hoping to capture a better photograph by getting just a little bit closer to the ocean, actually lying down in the sand. When the wave comes in he just barely manages to get up and run off. His friend who was standing next to him is knocked down.
Local tour guide Teitur Þorkelsson, who shot the video, told the local news site Vísir that the scene in the video is a daily occurrance. No matter how often he warns people, and how prominent the warning signs, he says, there are always some who just don't believe what they are told.
Fortunately for the two the waves weren't more powerful: The danger at the black sand beaches of South Iceland is that the waves can be unpredictable, and they are not all the same size. One in ten, twenty waves can be far larger than those before, crashing much further up the beach. These waves can then pull people out to sea.
Two people have been killed in the past 12 months after they were swept to sea. In January 2015 a 40 year man drowned at Reynisfjara beach, and earlier this month a 47 year old German woman drowned when the waves swept her out to sea at Kirkjufjara beach, which is at the west edge of Reynisfjara. The two beaches are among the most popular tourist destinations in Iceland, located just west of the village of Vík.
