Family run for their lives as terrifying rockfall on Dorset beach sends hundreds of tonnes of shale rock, mudstone and limestone tumbling to the ground

A family had to flee for their lives today after a massive rockfall covered the beach they were walking on with hundreds of tonnes of shale rock, mudstone and limestone.

Elizabeth and Ronald Downes were with their two grandchildren, son, daughter and their son-in-law and daughter-in-law on Charmouth Beach in Dorset when the cliff suddenly collapsed.

The group had to split up and run in different directions to escape the hundreds of tons of falling shale rock, mudstone and limestone.

Mr Downes, 58, and Mrs Downes, 56, were cut off from the rest of their family during the dramatic incident which left the children distraught and in tears.

Mrs Downes, from Danbury, Essex, said: ‘My family were on the beach when the rockfall happened. We became separated and had to run – it came down like a domino effect.

‘We were very shocked and scared – we were running for our lives – we could have been killed.

‘We became separated from our grandchildren, they were hysterical and crying, they didn’t know if we had lost our lives. We were all so scared and running like crazy.

‘We come every year and we are well aware of the dangers and should not go near the cliffs. We were also worried when the tide came in.

“We warned people on the way back to the car because it was still coming down.”

She said the family had been visiting the Jurassic Coast for 27 years to hunt for fossils and knew the dangers of the unstable cliffs there.

Mr Downes and Mrs Downes’ daughter, who did not want to be named, added: ‘We are very careful because we know the dangers. We walked along the sea line looking for fossils there, away from the cliff.

“As a child, I remember my father always saying, if you hear what sounds like a bag of peas rustling, look up and run.

‘I heard what sounded like a bag of peas, it sounded very light, like sand dripping down.

‘I looked up and saw this very fine dust and knew immediately. I shouted “look up, run” and the top of the cliff just fell down and everything came rushing at us.

“Mum and Dad were in the lead and ran forward and we ran back along the beach. It was absolutely horrible, especially with young children. My husband ran with one of the children and I dragged the other by the hand.

‘Big boulders came down and we tried to avoid the crunch as it fell. It came all the way to the sea line.

‘We were both unlucky and lucky. If I hadn’t been informed about the rockfall and if I hadn’t known it was a warning sign, I don’t believe we would have gotten out of there.

“If we had been closer to the cliff, we would have been dead.”

Staff at Charmouth Heritage Center arrived at work on Sunday morning to deal with the aftermath and warned people to stay away as stones continued to fall throughout Sunday.

Phil Davidson, a paleontologist at the center, said it is very dangerous and people should stay away from the exposed cliffs.

He added: ‘All the rain we have had this winter and spring is seeping through the mud and clay, we are likely to experience more landslides.

“Because it’s a new fall, it will be sticky if you try to climb over it, and you might sprain your ankle and get stuck.”

‘People also need to pay attention to the tides as there is a danger of being cut off from the tide.’

The rockfall took place around 7:30 am on Sunday.

On Friday evening, a 14-year-old boy had to be rescued from the same cliff after he became stuck 40 feet high while looking for fossils.

Two coast guard teams and two fire crews had to be present to get the boy down safely.

In 2012, 22-year-old tourist Charlotte Blackman was crushed to death when a similar landslide occurred as she walked under the cliffs at Burton Bradstock.

And in March, a huge 30-foot boulder collapsed just yards away from hikers in nearby West Bay.

The cliffs along the Jurassic Coast have been incredibly unstable due to the recent bad weather and there have been a number of rockfalls and landslides in the past month.

They are some of Britain’s most iconic views, standing 43 meters high and over 180 million years old.

Recent extreme weather has caused huge chunks of rock to fall onto the beach around Burton Bradstock.

Images of the fallen rock show boulders the size of double-decker buses resting on a pile of rubble more than 50 feet high.

The area, where the hit ITV show Broadchurch was filmed, suffered significant rockfall following Storm Kathleen, which saw 600 tonnes fall from the cliff face.

The cliffs are made up of sandstone rock which is porous and acts like a sponge with rainwater seeping down and weakening the stone over time.

At the same time, strong waves generated by storms crash against the base of the cliffs, also destabilizing them.

Some geologists believe that the rockfalls are a result of global warming.