The "tide of the century," created by a "supermoon" effect connected to last week's solar eclipse, cut off France's Mont Saint-Michel from the mainland with a wall of water as high as a four-story building on Saturday.
The huge surge waves flooded beaches and estuaries along the English Channel as a crowd of more than 20,000 looked on as the
high tide set in, The Telegraph reported. Mont Saint-Michel, which sits off the coast of Normandy, was named a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage site in 1979.
The outcrop is home to the Norman Benedictine Abbey of St-Michel Mont and draws some 3 million tourists annually, The Telegraph noted.
The tide brought with it fears of flooding along the coast of northern France as residents braced for the high water.
"Concrete blocks and sandbags are there to protect against waves and also to mark out safe areas where people can enjoy the spectacle without any danger of being swept away," Claude Renoult, mayor of Saint-Malo in Brittany, told The Telegraph.
Nicolas Pouvreau, a tide specialist at the French
national oceanography organization, told France 24 that the tide fell just short of predictions, as low air pressure may have lessened it.
The coasts of Britain and the Netherlands also experienced similar tide surges. The previous "tide of the century" happened March 10, 1997, and the next is expected on March 3, 2033, according to France 24.
The "supertide" effects were also felt in Tierra del Fuego near the southernmost tip of the South American mainland and the Australian northern coast.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.