Flood fears recede after Swiss glacier collapse
The huge barricade of debris formed when the Birch glacier collapsed on Wednesday has blocked the river Lonza in Switzerland's southern Wallis region, fuelling concern the dam of rubble could give way and flood the valley.
But as reconnaissance flights and inspections progressed, authorities said the water from the newly formed lake, which has been slowly submerging the remaining houses in the obliterated village of Blatten, was beginning to find its way over, through and around the blockage.
"This development is positive, but we remain cautious," said Stephane Ganzer, head of the regional security department.
"The risk remains, even if it is diminishing," he told a press conference, stressing that "no evacuations are planned" in the villages downstream in the Lotschental valley, one of the most beautiful in southern Switzerland.
The outflow "makes us optimistic and suggests that the water is finding a good path", explained Christian Studer of the Wallis canton's Natural Hazards Service.
However, work to pump water from the lake has still not begun as the ground remains too unstable, particularly on the mountainside.
The Lotschental valley stretches for just under 30 kilometres (20 miles) and is home to around 1,500 inhabitants.
It is renowned for the beauty of its landscapes dominated by snow-capped peaks, its small traditional villages, and its spectacular hiking trails.
But its face has been forever changed by the glacier collapse.
- One person still missing -
Authorities remain on alert, and communities downstream from the landslide, including in the Rhone Valley, which the Lonza flows into, are nonetheless preparing for a possible evacuation.
An artificial dam in the village of Ferden, downstream in the Lotschental valley, has been emptied and should be able to contain any downward rush of water, authorities say.
One 64-year-old man, believed to have been in the danger zone at the time, remains missing.
The collapsed glacier destroyed most of Blatten, which had been home to 300 people and was evacuated last week due to the impending danger.
"That shows the importance of early warnings and early action," Clare Nullis, spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization, told a press briefing in Geneva.
"The landscape will never be the same again. The village will never be the same again. But it is an example of how we can use forecasts and warnings to save people's lives," she said.
Nullis said the Swiss had provided a "textbook example" of what should be done, but stressed that not all countries had such highly developed early warning systems in place.
The landslide was so heavy it was even picked up by Switzerland's seismographs.
"This is probably the most catastrophic event for the last 150 years in Switzerland and probably in the whole Alps," in terms of a rock and ice avalanche, Christophe Lambiel, senior lecturer at the University of Lausanne's Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, told AFP.
- 'Erased within seconds' -
The glacier was below the 3,342-metre (10,965-foot) high Kleines Nesthorn peak.
In the fortnight before its collapse, a series of falls from the mountain dumped three million cubic metres of rock onto the ice surface.
That increased the weight, and with the glacier on a steep slope, it ultimately gave way in dramatic fashion, plunging down on Blatten, at 1,540 metres' altitude in the valley floor.
Experts said it was too early to make a direct link to climate change, but told AFP that thawing permafrost in the cracks in the rock likely played a role in destabilising the mountain.
Matthias Huss, the director of Glacier Monitoring Switzerland (GLAMOS), said the drastic collapse might bring global attention to the Alpine glaciers, and ultimately the impact of climate change on them.
"Often a big disaster has to strike before people realise that something is going on," he told AFP.
"It's very tangible: the destruction of a whole village is easily understandable to everybody. People have lived there for hundreds of years -- and everything has been erased within seconds."
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I actually just transferred to this restaurant from the other one across on a second.' So he went back to the inner kitchen area, brought back a bottle of Windex, sprayed the rat with it many times, went back to the back and this time brought some cardboard pieces to cover up the front of the grill and cooking area, and came back to us. 'Sorry about that,' he said. 'Hopefully that helps what would you like to eat?'" "I was driving, and my brother was in the front passenger seat. We ordered our food from the drive-thru. We pulled around to the window. I gave the employee some cash for the order, then the window shut. No sooner had the window shut than I saw a man in dark clothes run into the restaurant, hurdle the counter, and run to the back. Now this is Florida about 12/1 a.m. So I didn't really think too much of it. Maybe an employee was outside and just a little energetic, I thought. Still, we were waiting at the window for what seemed like a little too long. I look at my brother and say, 'Man, I'm going inside, this ain't right.' Just then, my brother went, 'Ahh, there he is.' I turned my head and saw the employee being walked out of the back with a gun to his head." "My boyfriend's mom works at the hospital and told us that there were a few people who had come in with the same case: sores all throughout their mouths (turns out it was herpes). One lady his mom looked at was in her mid-40s or so and was very confused about why she could have caught it — same with the others. Turns out they'd all eaten at the same restaurant. Some guy had masturbated in the food at Oriental Jade's Buffet and, obviously, had herpes. The guy actually ended up confessing about it when questioned. I know this sounds a little out there, but I honestly don't think she would have just made this story up; she's kinda conservative and isn't one to really make jokes about something like this." "This is so bad that it sounds made up, but it's 100% true. When I was about 17, I worked at a barbecue place. My job was salad bar duty. The boss explained how my main job was to flip over food in the little plastic trays to make it look fresh and pick out the visibly rotten stuff. So I did that for a while, but when I got to the dressing and couldn't tell the difference between Ranch and Bleu Cheese, I started to get grossed out. ... When I went into the back to talk to the boss, I saw rotten meat and blood all over the counters. It was so bad that it smelled sweet like a dead animal in the woods. The boss and the manager were smoking cigarettes and dropping their ashes into the cole slaw shredder. I said I wanted to quit, and the boss got really angry and yelled at me that I would never have a good job with my bad attitude. I gave her my apron and cried on the way home. I got an eye infection from wiping my tears after handling the food there." "I ran a route servicing restaurants, and one Mexican establishment kept the same pot of refried beans on the stove the entire two years. They would scrape the crust from the sides of the pot into the beans and add another 6/10 can of beans, stir it together, and keep it simmering on the stove. I knew it was the same unwashed pot by the burnt, spilled beans on the side. At night, they put on the lid and warmed it again the next day." "I worked for a short time as a hostess at a locally popular sit-down restaurant. They serve most things family style, so...a big bowl of mashed potatoes shared by the table, a platter of fried chicken, etc. ... The Thanksgiving I worked there, they were short on prep staff in the kitchen, and I was asked to fill in. Sure, no problem. I was dishing up salads and dressing and such. I saw the experienced prep crew take bowls of partially used salad dressing off of bussed trays, pour it into another dish, and serve it back out. I saw cold, old mashed potatoes that had been cleared from a table put back in the pan, mixed up with the potatoes already in there, and served back out. I saw fried chicken return to the kitchen after god knows how many people had touched it or sneezed on it, heated up in a skillet, then re-served to new patrons." "When I worked at a popular nationwide drive at 16 years old, I had a manager who was highly unprofessional and committed many health department concerns. ... He would use his bare hands that had probably never been washed in his life to pull out bugs that got in the ice cream mix when we were pouring it into the machine that we only rinsed and never washed. Slushie mix was made in an empty trash can and stirred with a canoe oar. I don't remember those ever being washed." "Eating chicken tenders and cole slaw at the local popular steakhouse with my boyfriend. I noticed some brown, crispy chicken pieces had fallen over into the slaw, so I ate around them. I gobbled the entire serving and as I picked around with my fork, I discovered the crispy things floating in my slaw liquid were in fact cockroaches…well, pieces of them." "In my twenties I worked at a downtown restaurant that made charbroiled burgers. We would put the tray of frozen patties out for the night in a tub. One morning, we discovered ants on the meat. My boss told me to wipe them off and serve them as if nothing happened." "I once got a burger at a diner-style restaurant where I bit into a large chunk of plastic in the patty. It was like a chunk out of a thick PVC pipe. I was more confused than anything — what the hell was going on in that kitchen? Where did this thing come from? They comped my burger and gave me a $5 off coupon for 'next time.' There never was a 'next time.'" "At a BBQ chain restaurant, I ordered a pulled chicken sandwich. There was a chicken FOOT in it! When I showed the staff, their response was, 'Yeah, it's a chicken sandwich.'" "I worked at a major fast-food chain (yes, that one) as a teenager. The people doing the cooking would wear a headset to have a little head-start on what was being ordered in the drive-thru. Any time a customer was rude, my friend would inevitably take their hamburger patty off the grill, hold it between his legs, grunt as if he was pooping, then drop it on the floor. I cannot even imagine the horror of what was on that floor. Of course, covered by all the other yummy toppings, nobody would notice. There is every reason to believe the same shit goes on today. If you are a cop, don't ever buy food that you cannot view the preparation in its entirety. " "While eating a salad with creamy Italian dressing at a chain restaurant, I bit down on a chunk of glass. I had them pay for a dentist visit, but had no injuries!" "I live in Mexico, and the attitude towards American companies is understandably low. You can go to a roadside restaurant and be greeted with the utmost cleanliness because it's usually a family operation. At an American chain in Nuevo Vallarta, I ordered a burger with onion rings. When I got it, I popped one of the onion rings into my mouth only to spit it right back into the cup because it was cold. I took the cup to the counter and said, 'These are cold, can I have some hot fries?'. The girl behind the counter took the rings and dumped them right back into the holding container under the heat lamp, including the one I had put in my mouth and spit out." They were busy and short on staff. We ordered, and while we were waiting, my mom and sister went to the bathroom. There was blood EVERYWHERE! We ended up telling our waiter. Over an hour passed, and we finally got our food, which was burnt, but whatever, we were hungry, so we ate it. We went back to the bathroom, and there was still blood everywhere. I mean, there's BLOOD in your bathroom and you're not going to clean it up?? We told the assistant manager about the late and burnt food and the blood, and she basically just walked away." "Years ago, a new fast-food restaurant opened in the small city where I lived in northern Missouri. Like many small towns of that era, its opening days brought large crowds to its lunchtime offering. I was no different and got myself a cheeseburger for the noon meal. As I proceeded with my meal, I took a large bite and discovered the sandwich was cold. I returned it to the counter, where they accepted my cold burger, peeled it off the bun, and slapped the patty on the grill. In a few moments, they retrieved my patty, missing bite and all, gave me a new bun, and sent me on my way." "My husband and I went to a popular marine aquarium. We had lunch there. I ordered clam chowder. As I was chewing what I thought was a clam, I realized it felt wrong in my mouth. It was gum someone had dropped in the soup!" "A long time ago, I went to this restaurant in New York City ... that is no longer around anymore with my parents. My mom got iced tea, and she ordered it unsweetened. She got the iced tea and tasted it. It was sweetened, so she told the waitress. The waitress picked up the iced tea and took a sip. 'No, this is definitely not sweetened. It tastes a bit funny though.' We were too shocked to say anything." "The soda had a sickly sweet taste, but we were all too young to realize it was from not cleaning the machines. I assumed the syrup dispensary unit was just broken, since they all tasted funny. The first morning I was in charge of opening the theater, I went to fill the ice boxes in front of the soda fountains. A wave of fruit flies rose out of the soda nozzles. I notified the manager; she told me to shoo them away. I was not pleased." "This was years ago, but it still haunts me. My then-husband and I were eating at a Chinese restaurant he loved and had patronized long before we met. It seemed like a nice enough place, and though I'm not a Chinese food fan, I agreed to go with him. The cleaning product smell that hit us as we walked in was off-putting. Then, of all things, there was a rodent turd floating in my tea. Yeah. I grew up in the country where we had mice and rats, so I knew exactly what it was. He ordered and went right on as if nothing had happened. I'm horrified about the whole thing to this day." "I was at my favorite Mexican restaurant in town when I dipped my chip in the salsa...a hair net came up with my chip. I instantly lost my appetite and left." "I watched as an employee of a taco shop wrung out a dishrag INTO my friend's burrito as he was making it. Nobody in our party was rude or disrespectful. Man, I loved eating at that spot, but that was the last time." "Not my story, but someone at my table. We were at a barbecue restaurant. We all got our food and started to eat. This girl took a few bites, then stopped.... she started to get a weird look on her face. She reached into her mouth and pulled out a razor blade. (It was a blade with a hole at the top; it had probably been used to cut the meat for her salad) She told the waitress, and then the manager came over within two seconds. He asked for the blade so they could give it to corporate, (yeah, right) comps her meal, and gives her a new salad of the same type. She started to flip out, saying that she wasn't eating it. Then they offered her something else on the menu. She has never been there since." "We ordered sandwiches for our whole family. Well, as it turns out, the night shift had used the little squeezable bottles that they put the oil and vinegar in, and instead used them for the yellow dish soap and then placed them with the sandwich-making stuff. Either on accident or as a joke, not sure. Anyway, I got a mouthful of dish soap, which wouldn't have been so bad, except it was A LOT of dish soap, which started to bubble up, and I swallowed some and got all nauseous." "A few people from my extended family and I had just gotten some stuff from a taco place when my cousin mused aloud, 'How old is this lettuce?' It was a used Band-Aid." "I just went to some real hipster restaurant that Foursquare recommended to me about two weeks ago. I sat at the bar where I saw all the cooks prepare the food. ... The food was delicious! I ate every single bite of it. As I waited for my check, not one, but two cockroaches ran across the bar. At first I didn't notice, but the person I was sitting next to started stabbing the bar top with a knife, and I was like, 'WTF ARE YOU DOING' — then I saw the roaches. One of them fell into my purse! And the other ran off towards the prep station. This also happened in front of two of the workers, who simply laughed it off. They got zero tip and then confronted me about it. I told them about the roaches and how they laughed about it instead of apologizing for it and comping something on the bill." "I went to a deli when I was really young and ordered a peanut butter sandwich. They were really busy that day, and when I got my sandwich and bit into it, I began crying. My parents yelled at me for being 'spoiled' and said that I should eat my food. I kept fussing and fussing until my dad took a bite of my sandwich and spat it out. Instead of peanut butter, they had spread horseradish with jelly." "I was eating at a particular Italian-American, New York-themed chain restaurant that will remain nameless with a couple of friends. We were the last table of the night, so it was pretty much just us and the server out on the floor. We were eating, and something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and saw this little brown mouse darting between the empty tables, snatching up little bits of garlic bread crumbs. When the server came over, I mentioned, 'Oh hey, there's a mouse running around.' She replied, 'Oh yeah, he comes out at night. He usually waits for everyone to leave first, though.'" "I went to a local Italian restaurant when I was 11 or 12. We sat down, ordered, got salads, and noticed that they were covered in FUCKING MAGGOTS! We then noticed that adult bugs of at least a few varieties were EVERY-FUCKIN'-WHERE. The lighting in there was so dim that it was hazardous to even try to navigate that shithole. Needless to say, we got the fuck out of there without eating, or, IIRC, paying. Shit got shut down pronto." "I won't eat at the deli next door to my office anymore. Not because it's dirty or anything, but because I witnessed this: I was in there one day for lunch, getting some food. The guy in front of me (he worked in the same office building as me) ordered a turkey sandwich with cheese. The cashier forgot to ring up $.50 for the slice of cheese in the sandwich. The guy paid and left the deli. Midway through the transaction with me, the cashier forgot he didn't charge the $.50 to the last guy. He STOPPED everything with me, and bolted outside after the guy asking for $.50." "We once went to a highly rated seafood restaurant in Maine. Our dinners arrived with a side of coleslaw. When my wife went to take her first forkful, she picked up the slaw and two shrimp tails! Obviously, they were scraping uneaten slaw back into the container to serve again! We pointed this out to our waitress, who was speechless, then stood up and walked out." "I worked as an AC installer/service tech for a couple of summers during college. There's a small barbecue place that is the main barbecue joint for watching basketball games and such in my college town. They were having problems with their walk-in cooler/freezer staying cool enough. The problem had to do with the really high level of humidity in the coolers and the poor insulation. After some investigation, we realized that the problem was that the room was never meant to be a cooler. It was once a closet, so it had poor insulation, was too small, but most importantly, had a sagging, apparently non-waterproof roof. What was happening was that water would sit on the roof above the cooler in the middle of a kansas summer (this means mosquito larvae) and would slowly seep through layers of sand and tar and all kinds of grossness that made up the roof and drip all over the food in the cooler, which was then recirculated through the coil fans." "I went to a pizza and wings place. I ignored the hole in the wall that was clearly from someone's fist. I tried to pretend that I didn't notice the mushrooms growing in the women's bathroom. I ordered a basket of chicken tenders, and when I bit into one, all I got was a mouthful of raw chicken. The waitress said, 'Yeah, sorry about that...' then bent down and said, 'Even I won't eat get the wings.' The place was shut down shortly after that and opened again under new management, but I never went back." "This is beyond the pale, but true, I assure you. Went to a local restaurant with my dad, who ordered fried clams. When he got his food, he tasted something odd in the clams and asked the waiter to bring him a fresh batch, as he thought these had gone bad. Next thing we know, the chef comes out of the kitchen to our table carrying one of those white restaurant tubs filled with raw clams. He asked, 'Were you the one who said the clams weren't fresh?' My dad said yes. The chef then stuck the bucket of raw clams in my dad's face, over his nose, and said, 'Here, smell ' think they're not fresh?' We left." "I was at a restaurant with my friends. We showed up at 5:30. It was fairly busy, so I asked if I could be fed and gone by 8:30, since I had a play to see. The waiter agreed and took our order right away. It was 8:15 before I got my meal." "This isn't so much of a horror story as much as a WTF? I was dining with friends at an upscale restaurant for a birthday. The birthday girl ordered the vegetarian special, which frankly sounded delicious. They brought her starter salad; she looked at it and said, 'OMG, they put imitation bacon bits on the salad.' The Maître d' glanced over with a look of contempt and said, 'Oh, no — the Chef only uses real bacon bits.' Now I love bacon as much as the next redditor, but perhaps not on a vegetarian special?" And finally, this isn't really the restaurant's fault, but it was too bad not to include..."With my family last year — we sat down in a booth, and I noticed a strange smell around the table. I rested my feet on the floor. It was summer and I was wearing flip-flops. I heard this strange squelch noise, and it came from under my shoe. I blinked in confusion and decided to look under the table. It was a dirty, open diaper. I had dipped my foot and toes in baby diarrhea. Some asshole parents just decided to leave it there, and some asshole cleaners didn't appear to see OR smell it..." What's your restaurant or fast food horror story? Let us know in the comments below or via this anonymous form! Submissions have been edited for length, clarity, and to remove mentions of specific restaurants.
