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

A family was forced to run for their lives today after a massive rockfall covered the beach they were walking on in hundreds of tonnes of shale, 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, mudstone and limestone.

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

Mrs Downes, from Danbury, Essex, said: ‘My family were on the beach at the time the rockfall happened. We got divorced and had to run – it fell like a domino effect.

‘We have been very shaken and scared – we ran for our lives – we could have been killed.

‘We were 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 not to go near the rocks. We were also concerned as the tide was coming in.

‘We warned people on the way back to the car as it was still coming down.’

She said the family has been visiting the Jurassic Coast for 27 years hunting for fossils and knew the dangers of the unstable rocks there.

Sir. 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 and looked for fossils there, away from the cliff.

‘I remember as a child my father always said if you hear what sounds like a rattling bag of peas, look up and run.

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

‘I looked up and saw this very fine dust and knew it straight away. I screamed “look up, run” and the top of the rock just fell down and everything came at us.

‘Mum and Dad were in front running ahead and we ran back along the beach. It was absolutely terrible, especially with small children. My husband ran with one of the children and I pulled the other by the hand.

‘Big boulders were coming down and we were trying to run from the cracks as it fell. It came all the way to the sea line.

‘We were both unlucky and lucky. If I hadn’t been educated about rockfall and if I hadn’t known it was a warning sign, I don’t think we would have made it out.

‘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 find the aftermath and warned people to stay away as rocks were still falling throughout Sunday.

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

He added: ‘All the rain we’ve had this winter and spring is seeping through the mud and clay, we’re probably going to end up with a few more landslides.

‘Since it’s a fresh fall, it will be sticky if you try to climb over it and you could twist an ankle and get stuck.

‘People should also check the tides as there is a risk of being cut off from the tide.’

The stone fall happened around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday.

On Friday night, a 14-year-old boy had to be rescued from the same cliff after becoming stuck 40 feet up while searching for fossils.

Two teams of coast guards and two fire crews had to get the boy down safely.

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

And a huge 30ft rock collapsed just meters away from hikers in March at nearby West Bay.

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

Some of Britain’s most iconic sights, they are 140 feet tall and are more than 180 million years old.

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

Pictures of the rockfall show boulders the size of double-decker buses resting atop a 50-foot pile of debris.

The area where popular ITV show Broadchurch was filmed saw significant rockfall following a battering from Storm Kathleen which saw 600 tonnes fall from the cliff.

The rocks consist of sandstone rock that is porous and acts like a sponge with rainwater seeping through and weakening the rock over time.

At the same time, strong waves whipped up by storms hit the bottom of the rocks, destabilizing them as well.

Some geologists believe that the rock falls are a consequence of global warming.