Huge cliff fall forces beach to close over the bank holiday weekend
A huge cliff fall forced a beach in Devon to close over the bank holiday and holiday park bosses admit they were lucky no one was hurt.
Ladram Bay beach near Sidmouth, Devon, was closed following the incident on Sunday morning – hours after it was packed with beachgoers in glorious sunshine on Saturday.
Luckily the private beach, which is used by the residents of Ladram Bay Holiday Park, was empty when the fall happened at 7.15am.
A cliff fall at Ladram Bay beach near Sidmouth, Devon saw rocks and rubble fall down the cliff face onto the beach as a lump of cliff fell away
A large area of rocks collapsed, falling onto and damaging boats and paddle boards which had been moored on the beach below.
Barriers have since been put up, blocking all access roads to the beach to stop anyone from going on it.
The assistant general manager Will Tottle said: ‘We feel blessed that it happened at the time as it did. It was a shock, car alarms went off and the ground actually shook.
‘The day before we were blessed with a beautiful Spring day, the beach was busy and we would have been faced with a very different story.’
He said people would have been killed or seriously injured because ‘it’s a substantial amount of rock’ that fell on the beach in the bay on the Jurassic coast.
The tumbling rocks fell onto paddleboards and boas which had been moored below. Luckily no one was injured
‘We are just very fortunate, we are trying not to think about that and focus on restoring the beach back to its state,’ he said.
Geologists will examine the cliffs tomorrow to establish what happened and whether the beach is safe and it is hoped that it will reopen in a week’s time.
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