Landslide at Scottish wind farm site caught on video

A peat landslide took place on Tuesday, May 7, on the site of the Viking Windfarm in Shetland, Scotland, and was caught on video.

Furthermore, the incident took place when work was being carried out on the electricity connection project between Kergord to Gremista, and the causes remain unknown.

SSE, the energy company developing the project, stated that as a safety precaution measure all work on the project had been halted, and an investigation was underway to determine the extent of damage in the area.

It is of particular interest that there had been no extensively wet conditions in the area prior to the slide and Dave Petley comments on The Landslide Blog that crushed rock can be seen on top of the peat on the slope’s crown, the load of which could have contributed to the incident’s development.

Thankfully, nobody was injured in the landslide, and no equipment was lost either.

It is worth noting that earlier in May, a fire broke out in Shetland’s Girlsta while testing power cables, that were part of the network’s improvement.

Finally, the Viking site had previously experienced a similar peatslide in July 2022, while Frank Hay, chairman of campaign group Sustainable Shetland, said “They were actually very fortunate that machinery and workers were not caught up in this. It is perhaps time that SSE revised its working practices on deep peat”.