This weekend, a sizable chunk of the Ketubjörg sea cliffs collapsed into the ocean, MBL reports. The Ketubjörg cliffs are situated on the Skagi peninsula in North Iceland (just north of Sauðárkrókur). “I could hardly believe my eyes,” Ingólfur Sveinsson, resident of the Skagi peninsula, stated in a conversation with Morgunblað yesterday.
In 2015, following an ice clog in a nearby stream, rerouted water subsequently slipped through the cliff’s porous tuff. Since then, a chunk of the cliffs by Innri Bjargavík had slowly broken away and had begun standing on its own (see above photograph). The cleft between the cliff and the chunk widened and had grown to approximately three metres (the chunk is estimated to have been approximately 65 metres tall). After the collapse, a 20-metre high heap of rock and earth can be seen beneath the cliffs.
“I make regular trips to Skagi from Sauðárkrókur to monitor the Ketubjörg cliffs,” Ingólfur stated. The exact time of the collapse is unknown; although the cliff was still standing Friday afternoon, seismometres in Hraun in Skagi – nine kilometres from Ketubjörg – detected disturbances around noon on Saturday. “It’s quite unbelievable,” Elvar Már Jóhannsson, an amateur photographer from Sauðárkrókur said, who visited Ketubjörg yesterday.
For the sake of public safety, local police will continue to monitor the situation in Ketubjörg. According to Ingólfur Sveinsson, the cliffs are still a hazard to the public given that there are still visible cracks in the cliffs.
