World's Largest Iceberg Split into Two

Seventeen icebergs have come off Antarctica during the recent 26 years

The world's biggest iceberg has split into two as a result of a fierce storm, AFP reported with reference to the Antarctic Sun newspaper.

Before the split, the biggest iceberg was called B15. The size of the iceberg was eleven square kilometers - the size of Jamaica. It was the largest lump of ice in history of all observations. The iceberg split into two at the end of October - B14A (the larger piece) and B15B (the smaller piece).

The largest iceberg in the world now is called C19A. It is presently located not far from the French base in Antarctica. It is 5.659 square kilometers large (the size of Brunei).

The B15 iceberg killed millions of penguins when it came off the mainland in March of 2000 and blocked the animals' access to the open sea. Researchers of Scripps Institution of Oceanography said, 75 percent of penguins' population in the Adely colony had been killed with the ice.

The above-mentioned newspaper also wrote, the US was intended to install a GPS satellite supervision station on the B15A iceberg to trace its location with precision. Seventeen icebergs have come off Antarctica during the recent 26 years.