An enormous iceberg has broken off a glacier in a lagoon at a national park in southern Chile.

The Chilean government's National Forestry Corporation tweeted a picture of the rupture on Tuesday.

Officials at the Torres del Paine National Park have said the cause of the rupture of the so-called Grey Glacier is unclear, although many will point to the Earth's ever-increasing temperature.

Such breaks in the ice at the park are rare and have not occurred since the early 1990s, they added.

Guardaparques CONAF reportan desprendimiento de gran masa de hielo en Glaciar Grey, del Parque Torres del Paine: se estudian sus causas. pic.twitter.com/CknBkGHYlI — CONAF (@conaf_minagri) November 28, 2017

Michael Arcos, the park's superintendent, added: "The retreat of the Grey Glacier is a process that has been constant and accelerated in recent times and is very likely to have to do with climate change."


The block of blue-white ice now floating freely in the glacial lagoon measures 350m (1,148ft) long by 380m (1,247ft) wide - more than three times the size of Chile's national stadium in the capital city of Santiago.

Image: A view of the glaciers in Torres del Paine National Park. File pic

Famous for its mountain views, Torres del Paine is one of the largest and most popular national parks in the country, with more than 250,000 visitors last year.

It has also been named as the fifth most beautiful place in the world by National Geographic and the 8th Wonder of the World by TripAdvisor after a four-month contest in which people voted on 330 locations.