Swiss officials halt further evacuations after glacier collapse
The Birch glacier in Switzerland's southern Valais region collapsed on Wednesday, sending a mass of rock, ice and scree hurtling into the village of Blatten in the valley below.
The huge pile of glacier debris, stretching across two kilometres (1.3 miles), has blocked the river Lonza and created an artificial lake, potentially posing threats of flooding in the Lotschental valley below.
"We absolutely cannot let our guard down," Raphael Mayoraz, a geologist working with the Valais canton, told public television.
Mayoraz spoke of a "favourable scenario" but warned that "we are not certain that the danger is averted".
Authorities said that they had proceeded with the evacuation of 16 people from two villages located downstream from the disaster area and that they would remain alert in the coming weeks.
Authorities are studying evacuation plans and have warned residents who could be affected.
The collapsed glacier largely destroyed most of Blatten, which had been home to 300 people and was evacuated last week due to the impending danger.
One 64-year-old man, believed to have been in the danger zone at the time, remains missing. A police spokesman said difficult conditions had forced the search to be called off on Thursday.
AFP | Fabrice COFFRINI
An artificial dam in the village of Ferden, just below, has been emptied and should be able to contain any downward rush of water if it happens, authorities said Thursday.
What remains of the village of Blatten is being submerged beneath the accumulating water of the Lonza river.
Where the Birch glacier used to sit, there is now a gaping hole in the mountainside.
By Fabrice Coffrini Avec Christophe Vogt à Genève
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
eNCA
14 hours ago
- eNCA
Swiss pilot takes big step closer to solar plane altitude record
ZURICH - Swiss pilot Raphael Domjan got within around a thousand metres of setting a new altitude record in a solar-powered plane on Sunday as he chases the goal of breaking the 10,000 metres barrier. Self-described eco-explorer Domjan flew the SolarStratos electric plane to an altitude of 8,224 metres in a flight lasting around four and a half hours, his team told reporters, after he landed back at Sion airport in southwestern Switzerland. The current altitude record for a solar plane stands at 9,235 metres, set in 2010 by the Solar Impulse experimental aeroplane, flown by Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg. Domjan is aiming to get to 10,000 metres or beyond -- flying at the same altitude as airliners. A warm-up flight on July 31 got to 6,589 metres -- the highest-ever for SolarStratos. AFP | Nalini LEPETIT-CHELLA, Paz PIZARRO And an attempt on Friday was cut short when the rising warm air thermals needed to boost the ascent failed to materialise, with Domjan turning back to preserve the charge in the batteries for Sunday, when the conditions looked more promising. Sunday's second attempt of the season set a new high altitude best for the two-seater SolarStratos, which has high-spec solar panels covering its huge 24.8-metre wingspan. The slow-charging plane will be left out in the sun to get the batteries back up to 100 percent for the next attempt. "To be a pioneer, an adventurer, it means trying something you are not sure will succeed," Domjan told AFP on Friday. "We'll try and try until we go to 10,000 metres.
eNCA
2 days ago
- eNCA
Massive French wildfire contained but 'not under control'
French firefighters said Saturday that the country's biggest wildfire in at least half a century was contained but would not be brought under control before Sunday evening. The fire near the Mediterranean coast has ravaged a vast area of the southern Aude department at the peak of the summer tourist season, killing one person and injuring several others. "The fire is contained but ... until Sunday evening the fire will not be under control," said Christophe Magny, chief of the region's firefighter unit. Authorities warned that Sunday's forecasted hot, dry winds -- similar to those when the fire began -- and a heatwave alert with temperatures around 40 degrees Celsius would keep the some 1,400 firefighters mobilised on high alert. "The firefighters will do their utmost before the return of the tramontane" this weekend, the president of the Aude departmental council, Helene Sandragne, told AFP, referring to a northerly wind that regularly blows through the area. The blaze -- the largest in at least 50 years -- tore through 16,000 hectares of vegetation, disaster officials said, revising an earlier estimate of 17,000 hectares. About 2,000 people were evacuated, though local authorities allowed them to return home on Friday evening. In Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, a 65-year-old woman was found dead Wednesday in her home, which was devastated by flames. Authorities said one resident suffered serious burns and four others were lightly injured, while 19 firefighters were hurt, including one with a head injury.
eNCA
2 days ago
- eNCA
Greeks count cost of wildfire 'tragedy' near Athens
In the municipality of Palaia Fokaia, an hour's drive south of Athens, a typical bucolic Greek landscape of olive groves and hamlets was transformed by a raging Friday wildfire into a dystopia of blackened land and incinerated homes. A howling wind ripped through the settlement on Saturday, spread dust and the bitter smell of ash coming from the surrounding hills, where fires and smouldering embers continued to burn. The ground shuddered as low-flying helicopters and water bombers weaved through the steep terrain to release water onto the remaining blazes and retrieve sea water. Hours earlier, over 200 firefighters had battled to keep the fire that erupted in the rural region of Keratea, some 43 kilometres southeast of Athens, from threatening the coastal resorts dotting the coast of Attica. At one gutted home -- its caved-in roof nothing more than a tangle of warped metal -- mask-wearing residents returned to retrieve whatever belongings survived the inferno. A despondent woman named Dimitria was more fortunate: the flames spared her home but razed the nearest forest, leaving it a desolate terrain of roasted trees and ash. AFP | Aris MESSINIS "From yesterday night, there were very few reinforcements from the fire brigade," she lamented, describing how help arrived after the advancing fire threatened "many houses" near the forest. "My house is OK, but my forest is burned. And that is the pity," she said with a trembling voice, her eyes welling up as she left to survey the damage. Firefighters with hoses combed through a copse of trees to douse any embers and prevent reactivations, scorched twigs and debris crunching under their boots. - 'We knew it was dangerous' - Observing them from his unscathed house was a relieved Kostas Triadis. Despite the damage dealt to the landscape, he hailed the work of firemen and volunteers, "otherwise it would be very bad." "It is regenerated by itself, I hope it will be the natural future," the 75-year-old added, referring to the devastated vegetation. "It is a very good, small forest, we always knew it was dangerous." His wife Eleni, 71, added that "everybody did their utmost to save the area, but the real tragedy is that the forest is lost. It was very old." AFP | Aris MESSINIS But she pointed to the many trees that were relatively unharmed because the fire burned itself out quickly in the short grass that residents had cut in June. "It's a tragedy, it's the first time the fire has come here," she said of the area, where the couple spend the summer months away from their Athens residence. A short distance away on the coast, the contrast could not be starker: beachgoers ambled on the sand and swam in the shimmering Mediterranean on a seemingly normal balmy summer morning. But the signs of the emergency were unmistakeable as beachside diners were greeted with the spectacle of water bombers skimming the water to refill and return to the raging fires. By Imran Marashli
