Flateyri ( Icelandic: ) is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

situated in

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

Westfjords The Westfjords or West Fjords (, ) is a large peninsula in northwestern Iceland and an administrative region, the least populous in the country. It lies on the Denmark Strait, facing the east coast of Greenland. It is connected to the rest of I ...

. It is part of the municipality of

Ísafjarðarbær Ísafjarðarbær () is a municipality of Iceland in the Westfjords region, created in 1996 from Flateyrarhreppur, Ísafjarðarkaupstaður, Mosvallahreppur, Mýrahreppur, Suðureyrarhreppur and Þingeyrarhreppur. Geography The principal settl ...

and has a population of approximately 200, making it the largest settlement in Önundarfjörður.

History

Flateyri has been a trading post since 1792 and temporarily became a major

whaling Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16t ...

center in the 19th century. On October 26, 1995, an avalanche hit the village, destroying 29 homes and burying 45 people, which resulted in 20 fatalities. Since then a deflecting dam has been built to protect the village from any further avalanches. In the 1990s, Flateyri prospered as a fishing village, but after the 2008–2011 financial crisis hit, its main fishing companies shut down, and many people left. A German fishing company has set up base in Flateyri and is currently fishing in and just out of Önundarfjörður. The

Esso Esso () is a trading name for ExxonMobil. Originally, the name was primarily used by its predecessor Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup of the original Standard Oil company in 1911. The company adopted the name "Esso" (from the phon ...

gas station A filling station (also known as a gas station [] or petrol station []) is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold are gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Fuel dispensers are used to ...

in Flateyri was the subject of a Belgian

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

in a series about gas stations around the world. The avalanche 1995 was also a subject of a feature documentary, 66°23 North West (The Day of The Avalanche), which premiered in a

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

cinema on the 15th anniversary of the avalanche in 2010. Flateyri_05

In September 2018, Flateyri Folk High School, a

folk high school Folk high schools (also ''adult education center'') are institutions for adult education that generally do not grant academic degrees, though certain courses might exist leading to that goal. They are most commonly found in Nordic countries and i ...

, opened, the second of its kind in Iceland. On 14 January 2020, two large avalanches hit the avalanche dam above the village. The first avalanche slid down the right side of the dam and to the ocean where it caused a tsunami that hit the harbour and sank 6 of 7 boats located there. The second avalanche slid down the left side of the dam before spilling over it and hitting a house with four occupants. Three of the occupants were able to escape the house through a window, while the fourth one was rescued from the snow around 30 minutes later by ICE-SAR members.

References

External links

Aerial photographs of Flateyri
{{coord, 66, 03, N, 23, 31, W, display=title, region:IS_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki Populated places in Westfjords