Drone footage shows 900ft crack on Jurassic Coast after landslide

Drone footage shows 900ft crack on Jurassic Coast after landslide
Drone footage shows 900ft crack on Jurassic Coast after landslide



A landslide has opened up a huge 900ft crack along a cliff on Britain's Jurassic Coast.

The crack appeared at Bowleaze Cove near Weymouth in Dorset after thousands of tons of earth gave way following heavy rainfall.

See also: 150ft crack appears on Jurassic Coast clifftop after landslip

See also: Dorset Jurassic Coast cliff crack is 'clearly going to fall off'


The owner of Howleys toy shop in Weymouth, Ian Moore, managed to get some amazing footage of the landslip using a £900 drone.



Experts are now warning people to stay away from the area after a walker was spotted standing just 50ft away from the unstable ground.

Geologist Richard Edmonds told the Mirror: "There's a really big landslide in that area which has been there for years and the more rain we get the more likely it is to move.

"We have clays in the lower part of the cliff and limestone in the top, which is porous. The rain seeps through the limestone and gets to the clay, which adds weight to the cliff and lubricates it, causing the landslide.

"It's really hard to tell how quickly that will fall away because it's driven by the weather."

According to the Daily Mail, he added: "It will keep eating its way into the beautiful Dorset countryside, but the only reason the coast itself is beautiful and internationally important is because of that erosion.

"It's not a negative thing, it's all part of a progressive evolution of the coastline.

"But as it has just moved people do need to stay away. If hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rock have moved there is an increased risk of rock falls and mud.

"Mud can be quite a hazard there. It will spill out onto the beach and create a danger."

Mark Fagg, of the Wyke Regis Coastguard, also told the paper that dogwalkers should keep their pets on a lead anywhere near the area, and warned that people should just give the unstable edge "a wide berth". He added: "That whole area is just going to start dropping now, like an elevator, and we will lose another bit of cliff."



Drone footage shows extent of Japan quake damage
Drone footage shows extent of Japan quake damage

Advertisement