Ananova:

One of the world's biggest glaciers has been fitted with portholes to stop it flooding after a chunk was hollowed out to make an ice palace.

An ice river almost flooded the newly opened Dachstein ice palace in Austria when workers discovered it while carving out the throne room.

They had to drain thousands of cubic metres of water - and then installed a porthole that gives visitors to the country's newest tourist attraction a unique view of a glacial crevasse - from the bottom.

Crevasses which are caused as the ice slowly slides down a mountain and breaks apart are often hidden by overlying snow.

Manager of the Dachstein ice palace project Lambert Tranniger said: "Every year we get thousands of ski tourists in winter, and in the summer we have tourists walking over the top of the glacier.

"But this is the first time visitors have been able to go into the heart of such a beautiful natural phenomenon."