Bournemouth East Cliff landslip crushes toilets Published duration 24 April 2016

image caption The landslip happened close to the Jon Egging Memorial

A huge landslip in Bournemouth has damaged a cliff lift and crushed a toilet block.

A stretch of the cliff close to the Jon Egging Memorial in East Cliff fell away at 05:00 BST, taking with it an array of fencing and benches.

Luke Watkins, assistant senior ranger for Bournemouth Borough Council, said: "It's one of the largest slips I've seen."

No-one was injured but the area has been cordoned off by the authority.

More movement is expected at the site over the next two days.

'Benches still falling'

Cracks started appearing on the promenade on Saturday, leading the council to close off the area.

image caption A toilet block was demolished by the landslip

image caption Fencing and benches disappeared over the side of the cliff

Mr Watkins said: "Bits and pieces are still coming down, but the priority is to keep everyone away and the area safe.

"A substantial amount of sediment has dropped down, and unfortunately influenced all the buildings down there, so everything's going to remain closed for the foreseeable future.

"It's still definitely unstable, the benches are still falling down."

Mr Watkins said because it took place in the early hours of the morning "there was no-one around and our rangers were the first people on site, so there was no loss of life and no-one injured which was the main thing".

There is sculpture at the top of the cliff; a memorial to Flt Lt Jon Egging who died when his Hawk T1 aircraft crashed at the 2011 Bournemouth Air Festival.

Emily Hudson, BBC Radio Solent

The sound of crumbling rock and gravel greeted me as I arrived at this scene, and I saw one of the blue park benches topple down right in front of me.

It's taken out the East Cliff toilet block entirely and left a large amount of sandy gravel on top of the old East Cliff café.

Large lumps of rock have fallen into one of the cliff lifts, knocking it into the other one.

The council says it's significantly undermined the supporting structure for the lift.