Early results: Iceland voters reject debt deal

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) - Iceland's voters on Saturday resoundingly rejected a $5.3 billion plan to pay off Britain and the Netherlands for debts spawned by the collapse of an Icelandic Internet bank, according to initial results.

Results returned from around 74,150 ballots counted so far in a country of about 320,000 showed that 93 percent of voters said "no" in the referendum, compared to just 1.6 percent who said "yes."

The referendum results are indicative of how angry many Icelanders are as the tiny island nation struggles to recover from a deep recession. The global financial crisis wreaked political and economic havoc on Iceland, as its banks collapsed within the space of a week in October 2008 and its currency, the krona, plummeted. The Icelandic government was the first to fall as a result of the meltdown.

Icelanders were deciding whether to approve the payment of $3.5 billion to Britain and $1.8 billion to the Netherlands as compensation for funds that those governments paid to around 340,000 of their citizens who had accounts with the collapsed bank Icesave, an Icelandic Internet bank that offered high interest rates before it failed along with its parent, Landsbanki.