What can be done to save the dwindling cocoa bean? – DW – 05/27/2025
05/27/2025
May 27, 2025
Chocolate is a favorite worldwide. But cocoa is becoming more expensive and yields are falling. Swiss start-ups have alternative ideas!
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North Wales Chronicle
26 minutes ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Swiss village destroyed by landslide in ‘major catastrophe'
Video on social media and Swiss TV showed the mudslide near Blatten, in the southern Lotschental valley, with homes and buildings partially submerged under a mass of brown sludge. 'What I can tell you at the moment is that about 90% of the village is covered or destroyed, so it's a major catastrophe that has happened here in Blatten,' Stephane Ganzer, the head of security in the southern Valais region, told local TV channel Canal9. The regional government said in a statement that a large chunk of the Birch Glacier located above the village had broken off, causing the landslide which as well as covering the village had also buried the nearby Lonza River bed, raising the possibility of dammed water flows. Mr Ganzer said it was not immediately clear whether anyone was injured, and that the army had been mobilised after earlier indications that the movement of the glacier was accelerating. 'There's a risk that the situation could get worse,' he told Canal9, alluding to the blocked river. In recent days the authorities had ordered the evacuation of about 300 people, as well as all livestock from the village, amid fears that a 1.5 million cubic metre glacier above the village was at risk of collapse. Local authorities deployed across the area to assess the damage and whether there has been any casualties, Jonas Jeitziner, a spokesman for the Lotschental crisis centre, told The Associated Press by phone. 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.
Perth Now
31 minutes ago
- Perth Now
Insane footage captures Swiss glacier collapse, one missing
A huge chunk of a glacier in the Swiss Alps has broken off causing a deluge of rock, mud, and ice to bury a mountain village. A spokesperson for the local authorities, Matthias Ebener, has confirmed that one person is missing after the catastrophic event, on Wednesday afternoon local time, in the alpine town of Blatten. 'An unbelievable amount of material thundered down into the valley,' Mr Ebener said. Footage shared on social media captured the dramatic moment when the glacier partially collapsed, creating a huge cloud that covered part of the mountain as debris came crashing down, destroying homes and buildings in the Loetschental valley. If you'd like to view this content, please adjust your . To find out more about how we use cookies, please see our Cookie Guide. 'What I can tell you at the moment is that about 90 per cent of the village is covered or destroyed,' Stephane Ganzer, the Head of Security in the southern Valais region, told Swiss media. He warned that there is a 'risk that the situation could get worse.' Drone footage broadcast by Swiss national broadcaster SRF showed a vast plain of mud and soil completely covering part of the village of Blatten on Wednesday afternoon, the river running through it and the wooded sides of the surrounding valley. The rubble of shattered wooden buildings could be seen on the flanks of the huge mass of earth in the drone footage. If you'd like to view this content, please adjust your . To find out more about how we use cookies, please see our Cookie Guide. Before-and-after photos have also been posted on social media platform X, revealing the devastation in the small southern Swiss town. If you'd like to view this content, please adjust your . To find out more about how we use cookies, please see our Cookie Guide. Roughly 300 residents were ordered to evacuate on May 19 after geologists identified a risk of an imminent avalanche of rock and ice from above. Swiss authorities have been monitoring the slopes above Blatten since ordering residents to leave their homes. - With AAP
New York Times
38 minutes ago
- New York Times
Glacier Collapse in the Swiss Alps Destroys Most of a Village
A vast section of a glacier broke apart in the Swiss Alps on Wednesday, setting off a landslide of ice, mud and rocks that caused widespread damage to a small village, nine days after its 300 residents had been ordered to evacuate. At least one person is missing after the village, Blatten, in the Valais Canton in southern Switzerland, was buried beneath debris from the Birch Glacier, Matthias Ebener, a spokesman for the area's crisis management team, said on Wednesday. Drone footage and other videos captured the moment that the glacier collapsed sending a large plume of dust down a mountainside. The glacier, covered by about nine million tons of debris, was estimated by a government engineer to have been moving about eight to 11 feet a day toward the valley before the landslide. Officials said at a news conference on Wednesday that it would take years to recover from the damage, which they were continuing to assess. 'We've lost the village, but not the heart,' Matthias Bellwald, the mayor of Blatten, said during the news conference. Stéphane Ganzer, a state councilor for the Valais Canton, told SRF, the Swiss radio and television broadcasting corporation, on Wednesday that 90 percent of Blatten had been buried. Karin Keller-Sutter, the Swiss president, sharing a photo of the destruction on social media on Wednesday, wrote that it was terrible to lose a home and that she was thinking of the people of Blatten. Officials warned that the landslide, which registered as a 3.1-magnitude earthquake, could cause flooding in the area. A nearby riverbed is blocked by debris, which creates a significant risk of ice jams, the officials, who were not ruling out additional evacuations, said. Regional leaders asked the army for pumps and debris removal equipment to try to prevent flooding, according to the State Council for Valais. The main road connecting Blatten with the nearby village of Goppenstein was closed to all traffic, except for residents. For about two weeks, the fractured glacier loomed precariously high above the picturesque hamlet, which sits in the Lötschental Valley. Under the threat of a major landslide, dozens of livestock were evacuated last week, including about 52 cattle, as well as sheep and domestic rabbits. Images of an injured female cow being airlifted to safety by a helicopter drew widespread attention online. Airlifting cattle is commonplace in the Alps when farmers are facing dire circumstances. In 2023, the village of Brienz, Switzerland, narrowly averted a similar fate as Blatten's when a portion of the mountain gave way and sent 50 million cubic feet of rock tumbling just shy of a schoolhouse. The village's roughly 85 residents had been told to evacuate a few weeks earlier. Last year, the threat of another landslide near Brienz, which is less than 60 miles northeast of Blatten, prompted officials again to order people to leave.
