Glacier collapse buries parts of Swiss village under mud and rock

Independent

6 days ago

One person is missing after a huge chunk of a glacier in the Swiss Alps broke off, causing a deluge of ice, mud and rock to bury part of the mountain village of Blatten on Wednesday.
Authorities had been monitoring the slopes above Blatten since ordering residents to leave their homes earlier this month as a precautionary measure due to the risk of a rockslide.
Social media footage captured the rumbling mudslide as it cascaded down the southern Lötschental valley. Images from the scene showed several cabins partially submerged in the debris.
In recent days, authorities had ordered the evacuation of approximately 300 residents and all livestock from the village. This action was prompted by concerns that a 1.5 million cubic meter glacier situated above Blatten was in danger of collapsing.
Local authorities were being deployed by helicopter and across the area to assess the damage and whether there had been any casualties, Jonas Jeitziner, a spokesperson for the Lötschental crisis centre, said.
"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.
Buildings and infrastructure in the village nestled in the Loetschental valley in southern Switzerland were hit hard by the rockslide.
Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter expressed her solidarity with the local population as emergency services warned people that 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.
In 2023, residents of the village of Brienz, in eastern Switzerland, were evacuated before a huge mass of rock slid down a mountainside, stopping just short of the settlement. Brienz was evacuated again last year because of the threat of a further rockslide.