Incredible moment when iceberg breaks apart and falls over next to daring tourists

Stunning footage has captured the moment a giant iceberg collapsed and flipped over just meters away from daring tourists.

Wedged off the coast of Svalbard, Norway, the massive stretch rolled over in an extremely rare capsize event as onlookers watched in disbelief.

Icebergs tend to roll over as they separate from their ‘mother glacier’, their irregular shapes often causing them to wobble a lot.

Scientists say that the enormous impact of this can release as much energy as an atomic bomb and even activate it tsunamis in the most extreme cases.

Rebecca Lucas Gan and Brian Gan, from the Philippines, filmed the phenomenon while on a trip with the Silversea Cruises company.

“I heard a loud thud and when I looked I saw that the iceberg started to move and got bigger and bigger as it capsized,” said Ms. Gan.

‘At first I thought I was hallucinating because I’ve never seen anything like it. Icebergs usually don’t move.

“Then our guide explained how lucky we were to witness it, as it is extremely rare.”

The remarkable event occurred at Lilliehookbreen – a 22 km wide glacier complex on the west coast of the Norwegian archipelago, Spitsbergen.

It is believed that about 60 percent of Spitsbergen’s landmass is currently covered by glaciers like this one – representing 7,000 km³ of ice volume.

While Lilliehookbreen is one of the largest in Spitsbergen, Austfonna is widely known as Europe’s largest ice cap. 1,900 km³ volume.

For perspective, the Dead Sea – sandwiched between Palestine, Israel and Jordan – is believed to contain about 114 km³ of water.

The balance between summer temperatures and winter precipitation determines whether these glaciers grow or shrink over time.

Icebergs, such as those on Svalbard, generally break off in the “calving” phase of a glacier that occurs as they move forward.

Rebecca Lucas Gan and Brian Gan (pictured) said: ‘I heard a loud thud and when I looked I saw the iceberg start to move and get bigger/higher as it capsized’

An iceberg capsize is a rare phenomenon that occurs when a glacier breaks up

While this is a natural process, the Center for Polar Observation and Modeling suggests that calving and thinning of the glaciers has accelerated dramatically since the mid-1990s.

This comes in the midst of global climate change, with temperatures on Spitsbergen rising up to seven times the global average.

Last summer was the hottest on record, with temperatures in August in Ny-Aalesund, Spitsbergen, reaching 5.1 degrees.

Polar bears and reindeer are among the species affected, with 200 carcasses found in the summer of 2019 as animals struggled to find food.

Ashild Onvik Pedersen, from the Norwegian Polar Institute, previously explained: ‘Climate change is making it rain a lot more.

“The rain falls on the snow and forms an ice layer on the tundra, which makes grazing conditions very bad for animals.”

READ MORE: The impact of ‘global cooking’: shocking before and after photos show how much the Greenland ice sheet melted during ‘hottest month on Earth’

Shocking before and after photos show how much the Greenland ice sheet melted during the ‘hottest month ever recorded on Earth’.

The first image, taken on June 14 by a US satellite, shows the Greenland ice sheet just before the high summer temperatures kicked in.

Meanwhile, the second image from July 24 shows the same area with significantly less snow cover and patches of “dirty” ice where impurities have been exposed.

According to scientists, snow falls on the Greenland ice sheet every winter and forms a protective layer for the underlying glacial ice in the summer.

But experts say the higher summer temperatures reduce the amount of snow and make the ice more susceptible to melting, contributing to sea level rise.

The Greenland ice sheet (pictured) covers about 656,000 square miles — about 80 percent of Greenland’s surface