A 100-meter-high iceberg threatens the Greenland coast

The image is impressive. A drifting 100-meter-high iceberg threatens the Greenland coast, leading local authorities Friday to evacuate people living close to the side. The Greenland police have urged residents of Innarsuit Island whose homes are located on the coast to move away for fear of submersion if the block of ice breaks.

Some evacuated inhabitants. "We fear a calving (separation) of the iceberg, causing a flood in the area," Lina Davidsen, head of security for the Greenland police, said on Friday at the Danish agency Ritzau. The village, located in northwestern Greenland, has 169 inhabitants, but only those living near the iceberg – spotted Thursday – were evacuated, said Ritzau. "The iceberg is still close to the village, the police are currently under discussion to see the rest of the events," said Kunuk Frediksen, one of the police chiefs in Greenland.

"The largest iceberg ever seen." Susanne K. Elibaden, a city councilor told the local Sermitsiaq newspaper that villagers used to see mbadive icebergs near Innaarsuit. "But this iceberg is the biggest we've ever seen, there are cracks and holes that make us fear a calving," she said adding that the village power station and the reservoirs of fuel were near the coast. "No one is idle near the beach and we told all the children to stay as far as possible," she said.

A phenomenon that is likely to recur The discovery of this huge block of ice comes a few weeks after the broadcast of a video – by scientists from the University of New York – iceberg detaching from a glacier in eastern Greenland. According to the experts, such phenomena will occur more and more often.

"The production of icebergs has increased in Greenland over the last 100 years due to climate change," said William Colgan AFP, Researcher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.
According to him, the growing number of icebergs "increases the risk of tsunami". In 2017, four people died and eleven were injured as a result of a tsunami near another Greenland village – on the west coast.