Landslide on Famara cliffs

Viewers from La Graciosa saw a huge plume of dust rising from the Famara cliffs yesterday after a landslide in the area known as El Gayo.

Firefighters from La Graciosa rode jet skis across El Rio to inspect the zone and check if there were any casualties. However, owing to the remoteness and inaccessibility of the zone no one appears to have been involved.

The landslide involved around 25 metres of the cliff face, and has apparently damaged a footpath, the Camino de los Caleteros, along the foot of the cliff. 

The Famara cliffs are a gradually eroding massif on which evidence of many earlier landslides is clearly visible.  There is no indication that the landslide was linked with minor earth tremors that have recently been detected off Lanzarote’s coast, but the winter rains could have contributed to the instability of the cliff.