Woman hurt in Happisburgh beach cliff collapse

A woman was hurt when part of a cliff crumbled on top of her at a beach.

The woman had been standing at the base of the cliff on Happisburgh beach, Norfolk, when she was hit at about 16:30 BST on Friday.

She was airlifted to hospital with suspected head and back injuries, the coastguard said.

Keith Griffin, station officer for the Bacton coastguard team, said: "The person managed to get pulled out of where the cliff had fallen."

The woman was flown to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, the East Anglian Air Ambulance said.

The collapse was described by the rescue service as a "relatively small cliff fall".

Mr Griffin said his team had been at the scene two hours beforehand, advising people to move away from the bottom of the sandy cliffs due to their instability.

"The cliffs are so dry and sheer at the present time that when it does rain the water is still soaking out of the cliffs and making it unstable and they are just falling down," he added.

"We would advise anybody visiting the beach at this time to stay away from the cliffs and the clifftops.

"If you are too close to the clifftops it could crumble on to the people underneath and if you are too close to the bottom and you get a cliff fall then you are in serious trouble."

In 2012, nine homes in Happisburgh had to be knocked down after the road they were on started crumbling away into the sea.