Antarctic: Giant iceberg breaks away in front of UK station
A big iceberg roughly the size of Greater London has broken away from the Antarctic, close to Britain's Halley research station, BBC reports.
Sensors on the surface of the Brunt Ice Shelf confirmed the split late on Sunday GMT.
Currently, 21 staff are at Halley, maintaining the base and operating its scientific instruments.
They are not in any danger and will continue their work until they're due to be picked up early next month.
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has been operating the station in a reduced role in anticipation of the calving.
Halley is positioned a good 20km from the line of rupture.
BAS has an array of GPS devices in the area that relay information about ice movements back to the agency's HQ in Cambridge. Britain's Halley VI Research Station monitors the state of the vast floating ice shelf daily but is unaffected by the latest rupture.
The mobile research base was relocated inland for safety reasons in 2016-2017 as cracks in the ice threatened to cut it off, AFP reports. Since then, staff have been deployed there only during the Antarctic summer between November to March, with 21 researchers currently on-site.
