Filmed from the air, the crack is impressive.
A giant iceberg broke away from the rest of the pack ice on Friday morning near a British station.
As large as the metropolitan areas of Paris and London, it is nearly 1,270 square kilometers.
A phenomenon which did not surprise the scientists, who expected this rupture: "Our teams have been prepared for years for an iceberg to detach from the Brunt ice shelf", indicated Jane Francis, director. from the BAS, the teams monitoring "daily" the advance of the faults thanks to "an automated network of high precision GPS instruments around the station".
The detachment of the iceberg did not threaten any human life: the twelve people who worked on the base were evacuated in mid-February by plane, in anticipation of the phenomenon.
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What will happen to this huge block of ice from now on?
Several scenarios are possible for the months to come: "either the iceberg will move away, or it will run aground and stay" nearby, says Ms. Francis.