(Bloomberg) -- An island with a 3,893-foot granite mountainjuts out of the icy ocean in Greenland’s Karrat Fjord.

Beside icebergs the size of football fields lies theseaside village of Uummannaq, which served for centuriesas an economic hub until it was abruptly wiped away.

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The area has been populated by Inuit people for about5,000 years and became a Danish municipality in 1763. Thevillage’s population of about 1,200 hauled about 100 metrictonnes of halibut out of the waters each year and catered toArctic tourists.

Mountain landslide created 270-foot waves

On the morning of June 17, an Arctic tsunami ravagedUummannaq and neighboring Nuugaatsiaq. Evidence suggest aclimate-induced disaster in which a mountainlandslide created 270-foot waves.

“Those waves can travel as fast as a jet engine,” said New YorkUniversity’s David Holland, who has spent 11 years in the regionstudying ice-ocean interaction. The wall of water demolishedhomes, washed boats onto the shore, and left four people dead.

Town evacuated

The Danish government evacuated the town, citing the threat offurther tsunamis and landslides. One hundred million kroner,or about $15.7 million, were allocated to move itscitizens inland. “People here are traumatized,” saidFlemming G. Christiansen, the deputy director general of theGeological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

Erosion, landslides, and tsunamis are common above the ArcticCircle. It’s a natural consequence of the seasonal expansion andretraction of the ice. As the permafrost melts and waves battercommunities, millions are spent annually on beach berms and portdefenses in a losing battle to protect the area.

No permanent fixes

There are no permanent fixes — all human efforts in the regionare eventually destroyed by nature. But without the berms and seawalls, the damage caused annually by storms and inclement weatherwould be far worse.

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Protecting these towns isn’t an altruistic ambition. As theArctic warms, more shipping lanes are opening to the transatlanticshipping industry. It’s a big business. In 2015, $66.9 billionworth of goods were traded between the EU and Canada through theregion. Monitoring changes in the great north helps protect thisbusiness.

Nearly 1,000 bergs have drifted below 48° north this year,double the average. A cottage industry has sprouted to protectshipping in the area: blasting the ice with water cannons andlassoing it from tug boats to keep it away from oil platforms andships. But all it takes is one strike to cause massivedamage.

Approximately 200 miles south from Uumannaq lies Ilulissat.Sitting at the end of a fjord, the city — whose name means“icebergs” in Inuit — is one of the few places in Greenlandwhere the ice cap reaches the sea. Ice chips off into the waterhere at a rate of 20 billion tonnes a year.

Source of most Atlantic icebergs

More ice is dumped into the sea here than anywhere else on theplanet with the exception of Antarctica. As a result, the areais the source of most Atlantic icebergs. Bergs born here arescooped up by the Labrador Current and carried south, wherecontainer ships make enticing floating targets.

“There’s been a lot more ice from Greenland coming into theocean in the last decade,” says the University of Alaska’s MartinTruffer, who uses ground-based radar to measure glacial movement.“The destructive power of these things is phenomenal.”

Temp increase mean more landslides, icebergs &tsunamis

Temperature increases mean more landslides, icebergs and tsunamis.It also means more shipping and a lot more risk. That risk could bemitigated with additional funding sea walls and relocating towns(something already under way in the Alaskan Arctic). But since thispolar region is so isolated and poorly represented, it's an issuefew know about and or are willing to pay for.

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Christiansen said new settlements will be built according tostricter guidelines, located minimum distances from the shore,and governed by regulations to insure safety. But he seeslittle hope in stopping more destruction.

“There are huge icebergs everywhere floating along the coast,”said Swiss glaciologist Martin Luethi. “One would have to do mapsand calculations of each glacier in each state to see how thedanger evolves, but there’s no commercial interest. There’s noawareness of the danger in Greenland. The mindset iss--- happens, and that’s it.”

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