Evacuation as huge iceberg threatens village

A massive iceberg has drifted close to a village in Greenland, sparking fears it could break up and send waves crashing into homes.

The iceberg has come close to properties on the island of Innaarsuit in western Greenland, whose population of 169 have been evacuated from their homes.

Police spokeswoman Lina Davidsen said: "Residents were evacuated in the early hours of Friday in fears that a flood would hit the place as a result of the broken iceberg.

"All the people in the danger area have been evacuated to a building that is further up in the village. The evacuation happened only because the iceberg is so close to the village."

Innaarsuit is located about 620 miles north of Nuuk, Greenland's capital and largest city.

Earthquakes and tsunamis have created major floods in Greenland in recent years.

Extreme iceberg break-ups risk becoming more frequent because of climate change, some experts have warned.

An iceberg four miles wide broke off from a glacier in eastern Greenland in June.

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Video: Four-mile iceberg breaks off in Greenland

New York University professor David Holland, an expert in atmospheric and ocean science, said:"This is the largest event we've seen in over a decade in Greenland."

Video of the break-up on 22 June was shot by his wife, Denise Holland of NYU's Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.

They had camped by the Helheim Glacier for several weeks to collect data to project sea level changes caused by global warming.

Mr Holland said the time-lapse video, which is sped up by 20 times, shows "the percent of the annual ice loss of Greenland occur in 30 minutes".

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He said "it sounded like rockets going off"and described it as a very "complex, chaotic, noisy event".

While the couple are studying Greenland, he said that "the real concern is in Antarctica, where everything is so big the stakes are much higher".

Original Article

World

March 15, 2019