Iceland evacuates 350 to mass shelters after avalanches hit Westfjords, northern towns buried overnight

• Around 350 people sheltering in mass aid stations (fjöldahjálparstöðvar) across affected areas
• Multiple avalanches hit the Westfjords and northern Iceland overnight
• Evacuations underway as authorities assess structural damage to homes and infrastructure
• Iceland's Civil Protection activates emergency response across the region

Roughly 350 people are sheltering in mass aid stations across Iceland's Westfjords and northern regions after multiple avalanches struck overnight, RÚV reports. The fjöldahjálparstöðvar — Iceland's mass emergency shelters, activated when large numbers of people must be evacuated simultaneously — are handling residents displaced from homes in the path of the slides.

The Westfjords, a sparsely populated peninsula in Iceland's northwest, are among the most avalanche-prone areas in Europe. Small towns nestled in narrow fjords sit directly beneath steep mountainsides, and when snow conditions deteriorate, entire communities can be in the slide path. Iceland's history with avalanche disasters runs deep — the 1995 Súðavík and Flateyri avalanches killed 34 people and reshaped the country's approach to avalanche defences and evacuation protocols.

The Civil Protection agency (Almannavarnir) activated emergency response operations as the avalanches hit multiple locations. Rescue teams are assessing structural damage to buildings while working to determine whether further slides are likely. In Iceland's avalanche response system, mass shelters are stood up in schools, community centres, and sports halls — facilities designed to house displaced residents for days if necessary. The 350 figure suggests several communities were evacuated, not just isolated households.

Northern Iceland has experienced heavy snowfall this winter, and warming conditions can destabilise snowpack on the steep slopes above inhabited areas. The Westfjords' population has been declining for decades — a trend that avalanche risk does nothing to reverse. Each major event raises the same question: how much infrastructure investment can be justified for towns of a few hundred people in one of Europe's most geologically hostile environments.

Iceland built extensive avalanche barriers above Flateyri and other vulnerable towns after 1995, concrete and steel structures designed to deflect or slow debris flows. Whether those defences held in the latest event, or whether the slides hit unprotected areas, remains unclear as daylight returns and assessment crews move in.

Three hundred and fifty people is roughly one percent of the Westfjords' entire population, sleeping on cots in a gymnasium.

Sources: RÚV