A vast chunk of Europe's most ill-famed mountain is threatening to break loose and crash down in the next few days, a geologist monitoring the situation said on Friday.
Hans-Rudolf Keusen said that 2 million cubic meters of the Eiger in the Bernese Alps, Switzerland -- twice the volume of the Empire State Building -- was rapidly working its way loose.
He said the mountain appeared to have cracked open as an indirect result of global warming.
There was no danger to people in the area.
"There aren't any houses underneath, so no one is going to end up getting a rock on the head," Keusen said.
But he added that the debris could settle on glaciers, blocking the outflow and affecting water supplies to neighboring towns.
It was not yet clear whether the part of the mountain at risk would fall all at once or by stages.
Keusen began monitoring the mountain, which has claimed the lives of many climbers, at the end of last month after spotting a long crack on the east face.
Measurements taken by instruments located on Baregg, on the other side of a valley from the Eiger, initially showed the fissure was opening up at a rate of 5cm a day.
But yesterday he said: "The crack is now widening at 75cm a day. That is very fast compared with fissures we have seen developing on other mountains. I think it is possible the rockfall could take place in the next few days."
It is natural for the Alps to erode. But evidence has grown in recent years that they are crumbling at a faster rate than normal. In 2004, three lumps of the Dolomites in northern Italy came loose.
The biggest chunk -- 75m high -- fell more than 300m to block a hikers' trail.
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