Thirty homes under threat as vast swathe of coastline falls into the ocean after massive landslide.

One home destroyed and 33 other properties isolated or threatened
Landslide broke across 500 yards on cliff side and 600 yards to the water
Residents reported hearing a noise ‘like thunder’ at 4 a.m. Wednesday
Officials do not know what caused the slide as there has not been rain

Residents of a small island in Washington state are coming to grips with the early morning landslide that shocked their community and destroyed at least one home while endangering more than 30 others.
‘I heard something loud, looked out my window and noticed I didn’t have any trees in the front yard anymore,’ said Bret Holmes, whose home was on the edge of the cliff.
He told the News Times that he has been losing ground at his property all morning; there was previously more than 30 feet of land to the bluff’s edge but now there is just 15 feet.

He said the land started to give way after he heard what he described as ‘a sonic boom’.
One house has been destroyed and 33 others are isolated or threatened after a 500-foot-wide landslide wiped out the ground along the coast of an island off Washington state.
Residents in Coupeville on Whidbey Island reported hearing a noise that sounded like rumbling thunder just after 4 a.m. on Wednesday as the land began to give way.

More on the story and pictures here

This event could be foreseen in the murkiest of crystal balls. If you don't want your life affected by landslides, don't build your homes within half a mile of where they are likely to occur. It's not like erosion is a new phenomenon.

Originally posted by IvanAstikov
This event could be foreseen in the murkiest of crystal balls. If you don't want your life affected by landslides, don't build your homes within half a mile of where they are likely to occur. It's not like erosion is a new phenomenon.

It highlights perfectly the short sightedness of man. We see so little but have the ability to comprehend so much.

It still spins me out, that as I went to sleep last night, and as I did the night before, as did everyone else, that all that separates us and those we read about in history books, are those parcels of unconsciousness or dreaming we all experience. To think back to those times, so foreign, people so unfamiliar in custom.. Landscapes entirely different, yet all that has changed is one day from the next. over and over. 5 days, 10 days, 365 days, 1000 years.

Yet we worry about something happening within the next month. Think back 10 years. The you that you are now might think that person is entirely different. It was a life time ago. Then as we age, that 10 years grows. Some people realise this and mourn "Where has it all gone?". But the allure of the now still makes that one more ciggy, or bottle of beam, acceptable. She'll be right, I'll sort it later.

How can we expect to be thinking about 50, 60, 80 years ahead when planning perceptibly viable situations now.