Residents of the seaside village of Skipsie in Yorkshire in Northern England were warned in mid-January that 20 homes were at imminent risk of collapsing into the sea over the next year. The area from Bridlington to Withersie has become the fastest-crumbling coast in Northern Europe, according to The Guardian.
Fearful landslides are visible behind the houses of the village of Skipsi, and parts of the courtyards and gardens have disappeared due to a landslide that occurred earlier this year. The edge of the cliff is 9 m from the doors of some houses. The main road, which once ran along the entire street, now suddenly ends in a cliff.
Erosion of Yorkshire's clay coastline is a long-standing problem: some 30 seaside villages have disappeared in a few hundred years. Permanent destruction began about 10 thousand years ago, at the end of the last ice age.
The global climate emergency has accelerated this process. Rising sea levels, more frequent and fierce storms with high waves and gusty winds have led to the disappearance of the coastline more than 1.5 km wide along the entire length of the Yorkshire coast over the past 20 years.
Parts of the coast are eroding much faster than anticipated. Weather conditions caused more than 10m of cliff to collapse from the coast in just 9 months of 2019, compared with an average of 4m per year.
For a long time, the picturesque Yorkshire coastline has been popular with tourists and locals alike.
