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… pic.twitter.com/ryxn8NlALL
— 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.'
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Mint
8 hours ago
- Mint
Collapsing Swiss Glaciers Aren't the Ones To Worry About
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The sight of a Swiss village obliterated in seconds by a flood of ice and rock is a grim reminder of how a changing climate puts the societies we have built in jeopardy. The worst effects of such disasters will happen not in villages like Blatten, whose population of 300 was evacuated after landslides gave an early warning of the imminent collapse that destroyed the settlement last week. Instead, they will be visited upon the millions of people living in the shadow of melting glaciers who don't reside in Switzerland, one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. The risks are greatest in the poor and fragile states that ring the Himalayas, whose ice packs feed many of the world's largest and most economically important rivers: the Indus, Ganges-Brahmaputra, Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow. Pakistan alone has more than 7,000 glaciers, the largest collection outside the polar regions. Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Nepal and India are home to tens of thousands more. These reserves of frozen water are shrinking rapidly as the planet warms. Ice loss in 2023 was the fastest in five decades, Sulagna Mishra, a hydrology expert at the World Meteorological Office, told an online seminar earlier this year. The damage from this great melting can come in many forms. Highland landscapes are often held together by ice, with glaciers, permafrost, mountainsides and deposited sediments creating a fragile stability that can last for millennia. When this equilibrium is disrupted, the change can be as sudden as snow sliding off a chalet roof in spring — especially if, as in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes and Rockies, the region is seismically active. In Switzerland, a succession of mild winters and warm summers has caused glacial mass to decline by about 10% in the last three years alone, according to Mishra. The most serious threat is not from landslides like the one that destroyed Blatten, but flooding. The melting of a glacier can at first feel like a bounty in an underdeveloped country, creating high-altitude lakes that feed river systems and encourage agriculture, hydroelectric dams, and scenic tourism. The volume of such glacial lakes globally has increased by about half since 1990, drawing people to the valleys just downstream. The population of Gilgit-Baltisan, Pakistan's most mountainous region, has more than doubled since the late 1990s to about 1.7 million. It's a fatal temptation. The same almost imperceptible changes that caused Blatten's stable glacier to turn into a wave of mud can lead such glacial lakes to burst through the ice and rock that hold them in place, swamping communities downstream. Heavy rainfall and the melting of the Chorabari glacier caused a lake near the Indian pilgrimage town of Kedarnath to burst its banks in June 2013. The deluge that resulted killed more than 6,000 people, one of India's most devastating natural disasters. Such glacial lake outburst floods increased six-fold over the course of the 20th century, and now threaten about 15 million people globally. It's possible to make predictions of where glaciers are most at risk, but Himalayan countries are starting from a position of enormous disadvantage. Switzerland has been measuring the position of over a hundred of its glaciers for more than a century, giving it the most comprehensive understanding anywhere in the world. In Pakistan, just 12 such datasets are available, dating back for an average of 31 years. While some information can be gleaned from aerial and satellite photography, on-the-ground measurements are still the gold standard. That's a challenge in an area as remote as the Himalayas, especially when the tense ceasefire lines separating India, Pakistan, and China run through some of the most at-risk areas. Even where solar-powered early warning systems have been set up to detect the first signs of flooding, in poor and isolated regions they often break down due to lack of maintenance. The advantages from redressing this imbalance are immense. A recent United Nations-backed program to build 50 warning systems in northern Pakistan cost less than $40 million and directly benefited 700,000 people at risk. But rich countries are less and less willing to provide the funds needed. Much of the money for initiatives to help mountain communities adapt to climate change, for instance, has come from the US Agency for International Development, currently in the process of being closed down after an executive order by President Donald Trump. Even when cases against companies contributing to this environmental degradation make it to court, success is never guaranteed. Within hours of the Blatten landslide, a Peruvian farmer, who has spent a decade suing German coal-fired utility RWE AG to help build protections against glacial flooding, had his case dismissed by a German court. As the climate warms, the Global North is doing what it can to protect itself against the worst effects of collapsing glaciers. The Global South is being left to fend for itself. More From Bloomberg Opinion: This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. More stories like this are available on
Indian Express
2 days 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
2 days 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.
