Mud and rock bury Swiss village after glacier collapse, one person missing
A huge chunk of a glacier in the Swiss Alps broke off on Wednesday afternoon, causing a deluge of ice, mud and rock to bury part of a mountain village evacuated earlier this month due to the risk of a rockslide, authorities said.
One person is currently missing, officials said.
Drone footage broadcast by Swiss national broadcaster SRF showed a vast plain of mud and soil completely covering part of the village of Blatten, the river running through it and the wooded sides of the surrounding valley.
'An unbelievable amount of material thundered down into the valley,' said Matthias Ebener, a spokesperson for local authorities in the southwestern canton of Valais.
One person was missing, Ebener said.
The rubble of shattered wooden buildings could be seen on the flanks of the huge mass of earth in the drone footage.
Buildings and infrastructure in Blatten, whose roughly 300 inhabitants were evacuated on May 19 after geologists had identified the risk of an imminent avalanche of rock and ice from above, were hit hard by the rockslide, Ebener said.
SRF said houses were destroyed in the village nestled in the Loetschental valley in southern Switzerland.
Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter expressed her solidarity with the local population as emergency services warned people the area was hazardous and urged them to stay away, closing off the main road into the valley.
'It's terrible to lose your home,' Keller-Sutter said on X.
Authorities have been monitoring the slopes above Blatten since ordering residents to leave their homes.
A video shared widely on social media showed the dramatic moment when the glacier partially collapsed, creating a huge cloud that covered part of the mountain as rock and debris came rumbling down into the outskirts of the village.
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Indian Express
a day ago
- Indian Express
Swiss village of Blatten buried by glacier collapse, raising climate concerns
The village of Blatten in southern Switzerland has been destroyed after a large section of mountain collapsed onto a glacier, sending rocks and ice crashing into the valley. Scientists had been monitoring the Nesthorn mountain above Blatten and had noticed signs of instability in recent weeks. Small slides of rocks and ice had already begun, prompting the evacuation of all 300 residents and their animals. Officials hoped the danger would pass slowly, but on Wednesday, a massive landslide hit the area. According to BBC, about nine million cubic metre of ice and rocks fell onto the Birch glacier and into the valley. The impact was strong enough to be recorded by geological monitoring stations across Switzerland. Blatten was completely buried. Its homes, church, and Hotel Edelweiss were all destroyed. Only the roof of the hotel is now visible above the debris. Breaking: A glacier collapse has buried the Swiss village of Blatten under mud. 💔 The Lonza River is dammed and large parts of the town have been evacuated. Tragic — but thanks to early warnings from scientists, lives were likely saved.#Switzerland #Blatten #ClimateCrisis… — The Curious Quill (@PleasingRj) May 29, 2025 In the nearby village of Kippel, residents Barbara and Otto Jaggi described the moment the disaster happened. 'There was loud banging, and the lights went out,' Barbara told. At first, they thought it was their chimney repairman, but soon he ran upstairs shouting, 'the mountain is coming.' Glacier expert Matthias Huss from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich said the disaster was the worst-case scenario. 'I was speechless,' he told the BBC, adding that while Blatten is the most serious event in recent years, it is not the only one. 'We are seeing many,' he said. 'A lot of these events in the last years in the Alps are linked to global warming.' Experts believe melting permafrost is playing a key role. Permafrost helps keep mountains stable, but as temperatures rise, it thaws. When that happens, the ground weakens, and slopes begin to collapse. Glaciers are also shrinking, uncovering unstable rock faces. 'These changes used to take centuries,' Huss explained. 'Now they are happening in just a few decades.' Although the village had been evacuated in time and no major injuries were reported, one man aged 64 is missing. Authorities say the clean-up is on hold as the debris has blocked the River Lonza, creating a flood risk for other villages like Wiler and Kippel. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter visited the area and met with people who had lost their homes. Local residents gathered for Ascension Day prayers in Wiler, expressing both grief and solidarity. 'They've lost everything,' one woman said. 'It's terrible. There's nothing we can do.' An elderly man added, 'We can cry, but we cannot cry forever. We must believe in God, that He will help us, so that life can go on.' Matthias Huss believes the Blatten disaster could shape how Switzerland thinks about living in mountain areas. 'This event will be decisive for how we perceive the mountains,' he said. 'And I wouldn't exclude that other villages might be destroyed in future.'
Time of India
a day ago
- Time of India
Switzerland's glacier collapse: How a village vanished and what it means for the future
On May 28, 2025, the tranquil Swiss village of Blatten in the Lötschental Valley was dramatically transformed when a massive landslide, triggered by the collapse of the Birch Glacier, buried approximately 90% of the community under mud, ice, and rock. Fortunately, due to earlier warnings about visible cracks in the glacier, residents had been evacuated about ten days prior, preventing a greater tragedy. However, one 64-year-old man remains missing, and search efforts have been suspended due to hazardous conditions. The collapse not only devastated Blatten but also blocked the Lonza River, creating a natural dam and a new lake, raising concerns about potential downstream flooding in neighboring villages like Gampel and Steg. The Swiss army is on standby with heavy equipment to mitigate the situation, and authorities continue to enforce safety measures. Experts attribute the disaster to climate change, noting that rising temperatures have led to accelerated glacier melting and destabilization. Switzerland's glaciers have lost 10% of their volume over the past two years alone, with 6% lost in 2022 and 4% in 2023. This rapid loss is equivalent to the total depletion between 1960 and 1990. People have shared the horrific aftermath of the glacier collapse. The collapse of the Birch Glacier in Switzerland isn't just a one-off disaster — it's part of a much bigger, scarier trend: the thawing of long-frozen ice deposits all across the Alps. Glaciers aren't just giant piles of snow and ice sitting pretty in postcards. They're ancient, slow-moving rivers of ice that hold climate history, regulate ecosystems, and feed entire water systems. But right now, they're melting — and fast. Due to global warming, temperatures in alpine regions are rising at nearly double the global average. That means permafrost, the frozen ground beneath glaciers and rocky peaks, is starting to thaw. And when that happens, it's like pulling the pins out of a massive mountain Jenga game. The frozen 'glue' that holds rocks and ice together melts, making landslides, rockfalls, and ice collapses much more likely — just like what we saw in Blatten. Thawing also means water from glaciers is released too quickly, forming sudden lakes and unstable dams. These can burst, causing flash floods downstream. And if that wasn't enough, the melt also affects water supplies for millions across Europe who rely on glaciers to regulate rivers in summer. Scientists say that if current trends continue, Switzerland could lose many of its glaciers by the end of this century. The thaw is irreversible in many areas — once the ice is gone, it's gone. What's left behind are unstable landscapes, crumbling peaks, and a deeply altered climate future. This isn't just about losing pretty views; it's about losing stability, security, and balance in entire ecosystems. In short: thawing glaciers are nature's giant warning signs — and they're flashing red.
NDTV
2 days ago
- NDTV
"I Lost Everything": Swiss Residents After Glacier Debris Buries Village
Wiler: Residents struggled on Thursday to absorb the scale of devastation caused by a huge slab of glacier that buried most of their picturesque Swiss village, in what scientists suspect is a dramatic example of climate change's impact on the Alps. A deluge of millions of cubic meters of ice, mud and rock crashed down a mountain on Wednesday, engulfing the village of Blatten and the few houses that remained were later flooded. Its 300 residents had already been evacuated earlier in May after part of the mountain behind the Birch Glacier began to crumble. Rescue teams with search dogs and thermal drone scans have continued looking for a missing 64-year-old man but have found nothing. Local authorities suspended the search on Thursday afternoon, saying the debris mounds were too unstable for now and warned of further rockfalls. With the Swiss army closely monitoring the situation, flooding worsened during the day as vast mounds of debris almost two kilometers across clogged the path of the River Lonza, causing a huge lake to form amid the wreckage and raising fears that the morass could dislodge. Water levels have been rising by 80 centimetres an hour from the blocked river and melting glacier ice, Stephane Ganzer, head of the security division for the Valais canton, told reporters. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter is returning early from high-level talks in Ireland and will visit the site on Friday, her office said. "I don't want to talk just now. I lost everything yesterday. I hope you understand," said one middle-aged woman from Blatten, declining to give her name as she sat alone disconsolately in front of a church in the neighbouring village of Wiler. Nearby, the road ran along the valley before ending abruptly at the mass of mud and debris now blanketing her own village. A thin cloud of dust hung in the air over the Kleines Nesthorn Mountain where the rockslide occurred while a helicopter buzzed overhead. Werner Bellwald, a 65-year-old cultural studies expert, lost the wooden family house built in 1654 where he lived in Ried, a hamlet next to Blatten also wiped out by the deluge. "You can't tell that there was ever a settlement there," he told Reuters. "Things happened there that no one here thought were possible." Profound Shock The worst scenario would be that a wave of debris bursts the nearby Ferden Dam, Valais canton official Ganzer said. He added that the chances of this further mudslide were currently unlikely, noting that the dam had been emptied as a precaution so it could act as a buffer zone. Local authorities said that the buildings in Blatten which had emerged intact from the landslide are now flooded and that some residents of nearby villages had been evacuated. The army said around 50 personnel as well as water pumps, diggers and other heavy equipment were on standby to provide relief when it was safe. Authorities were airlifting livestock out of the area, said Jonas Jeitziner, a local official in Wiler, as a few sheep scrambled out of a container lowered from a helicopter. Asked how he felt about the future, he said, gazing towards the plain of mud: "Right now, the shock is so profound that one can't think about it yet." The catastrophe has revived concern about the impact of rising temperatures on Alpine permafrost where thawing has loosened some rock structures, creating new mountain hazards. For years, the Birch Glacier has been creeping down the mountainside, pressured by shifting debris near the summit. Matthias Huss, head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland, pointed to the likely influence of climate change in loosening the rock mass among the permafrost, which triggered the collapse. "Unexpected things happen at places that we have not seen for hundreds of years, most probably due to climate change," he told Reuters.
