Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
LUCKY ESCAPE IN LANDSLIDE HELL..
A HUGE landslide yesterday dumped tons of debris on a beach packed with families just 24 hours earlier.
A 131ft wide section of cliff collapsed sending rocks and earth on to the sands where a handful of people were strolling. It is thought no one was injured. Locals breathed a sigh of relief it did not happen on Sunday, when the beach was full of parents and kids. Christian Pilling was walking along the coast at Nefyn, North Wales, as the cliff fell.
The hairdresser, from nearby Morfa Nefyn, said: “We’d gone for a walk, turned round and had the shock of our lives.”
Elise Leyshon added: “It is so lucky that no one was on the beach.
“Yesterday [Sunday] it was full of people. They would have stood no chance if caught by that landslide.” Some homeowners lost parts of their gardens and were warned to keep a distance.
Steve Wilding-hewitt said: “We could see the coastguard shouting to someone in their garden to stay away from the edge because it was still moving.
“There have been rockfalls around this coastline for a number of months, but never anything like this. It is frightening.”
North Wales police closed surrounding roads to deter sightseers and a Gwynedd Council spokesman urged people to stay away ahead of an “initial investigation”.
In 2001, Shirley Race, 58, died and her husband Donald, 63, was seriously injured in Nefyn when a landslide swept their car over a cliff and into the sea.
The British Geological Survey lists Nefyn as in a “subsidence hazard zone”.
It says of the area: “Slopes are covered in weathered debris and this is particularly susceptible to shallow landsliding.”