THIS is the terrifying moment a woman jumped to safety after she and three friends became trapped on rocks at Kilve beach.

The four were stranded just six feet above the rising tide and thirty feet down the rain lashed cliff-face.

A team from Watchet coastguard were unable to scale the unstable cliff for fear of dislodging hundreds of tonnes of boulders onto the group.

They were rescued after each jumped onto a lifeboat from Minehead RNLI which anchored just feet from the sharp rocks.

A spokesman for Watchet coastguard said: “It was not an ideal situation. The lifeboat was put at risk.

“With the busy summer season starting, we urge people to always check tide times before they visit the local beaches and cliff paths. What might start as a pleasant walk along the beach can quickly turn into a life threatening situation within a very short time.

“Many of the cliffs are in poor condition and could give way. It is normal in a situation like this for us to climb down but the rocks were so loose, any attempt to do that could have resulted in hundreds of tonnes of rocks falling on the people.”

The incident on Saturday afternoon happened after it had been raining making the cliffs extra slippy.

A spokesman for RNLI Minehead said the four people – two men and two women – had gone for an afternoon ramble along the beach at Watchet.

He said they decided to explore what appeared to be a cave which turned out to be a steep-sided gully. But the group realised that their way out had been blocked by the rising spring tide, so they had to climb clear of the water and call for help.

Minehead’s crew launched both boats to rescue the group, who were taken off by the station’s D class boat and transferred to the larger Atlantic 85 which put them ashore at Watchet harbour.

Lifeboat helmsman Phil Sanderson said the walkers were wet and slightly shocked but otherwise unharmed.“What really shook them was the speed at which the tide had risen and cut off their escape,” he said. "People must check both the height and the time of the tide before they start exploring this section of coast.”