Latest news with #AlbertRösti
Winnipeg Free Press
4 days ago
- Climate
- Winnipeg Free Press
Sadly, we're not alone in facing disasters
Opinion Switzerland is a long way from Manitoba. Switzerland has alpine meadows and glaciers and mountains — Manitoba does not. Manitoba has broad swathes of flatland prairie; Switzerland does not. David Lipnowski / The Canadian Press A helicopter drops water on a wildfire near Lac du Bonnet on May 15. But both jurisdictions are feeling the destructive impact of global climate change, and both are likely to continue to reap that whirlwind. In Manitoba, regularly warmer weather is drying out the boreal forest, making wildland fires both more common and more severe. This month's fires have brought the wildfire-burned lands in Manitoba in 2025 to a staggering 200,000 hectares, almost triple the amount of forestland burned in an entire average year. And this is just May — with fires still burning out of control and some predictions of a hotter and drier than usual summer ahead, it seems reasonable to expect the amount of burned forestland to grow. From fire, to ice. Switzerland has seen its temperature rise, on average, by three degrees Celsius since the 1970s. In the process, glaciers across the European country have shrunk dramatically. Since 2020, Swiss glaciers have lost 40 per cent of their volume: in two summers alone, 2022 and 2023, the glacial loss was 10 per cent. Sometimes, the loss of glaciers seems almost placid: more meltwater flows from the foot of a glacier than it has in decades past, and the toe of the glacier slowly recedes up the long canyons built by the sheer weight and movement of rivers of grinding ice. The effects are visible over years, most commonly seen by comparing year-over-year photographs. But other times, glaciers can undergo rapid change: ice walls holding back glacial lakes collapse, or entire glacial faces can pitch down into valleys beneath them. This past week, while Manitobans were being evacuated from scores of locations and a provincial state of emergency was being declared in an effort to deal with more than 20 forest fires, a glacial collapse virtually eradicated Blatten, a small Swiss town of 300 south of the capital of Bern. Warming temperatures caused permafrost holding mountainside rockfaces together to melt. Millions of tons of rock spilled onto the surface of the Birch Glacier, and the combination of all that weight and warm weather Monday caused a second collapse, this time with the entire face of the glacier plowing down a mountainside and through the village. (Scientists had already noticed significant cracking occurring quickly on the glacier, and Blatten had been evacuated on an emergency basis on May 19.) In total, snow and rock debris several metres deep now covers more than a mile of valley. 'Nature is stronger than human beings and mountain people know this well,' Swiss Environment Minister Albert Rösti said. 'But what happened today is absolutely extraordinary. It was the worst we could've imagined.' In Manitoba, we also know the strength of nature, from fires to floods to extreme temperatures on both sides of freezing. And the current forest fires are close to the worst the province has ever experienced. Weekday Mornings A quick glance at the news for the upcoming day. Will disasters like Blatten happen again? Mathieu Morlighem, a glaciologist at Dartmouth College, speaking to ABC News, said 'I think we can expect more events like this in the future.' Sadly, that holds just as true for forest fires in Manitoba as it does for glaciers in Switzerland. The Swiss are almost half a world apart from us geographically, but all too close when it comes to facing hazards from a changing climate. Sadly, we're all in this together.
New York Post
7 days ago
- Climate
- New York Post
Swiss Alps village largely destroyed after massive glacier collapses: ‘It's a major catastrophe'
A huge mass of rock and ice from a glacier thundered down a Swiss mountainside on Wednesday, sending plumes of dust skyward and coating with mud nearly all of an Alpine village that authorities had evacuated earlier this month as a precaution. Video on social media and Swiss TV showed the mudslide near Blatten, in the southern Lötschental valley, with homes and buildings partially submerged under a mass of brownish sludge. Regional police said a 64-year-old man was reported missing, and search and rescue operations involving a drone with the thermal camera were underway. 4 Mud and rocks slide down a mountain after a glacier partially collapsed, covering most of the village of Blatten, Switzerland, on May 28, 2025. via REUTERS '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 above the village had broken off, causing the landslide, which also buried the nearby Lonza River bed, raising the possibility of dammed water flows. 'There's a risk that the situation could get worse,' Ganzer said, alluding to the blocked river. He said the army had been mobilized after earlier indications that the movement of the glacier was accelerating. At a news conference, Swiss Environment Minister Albert Rösti lamented 'an extraordinary event' and said the government would take steps to help villagers who lost their homes. 4 Video on social media and Swiss TV showed the mudslide near Blatten, in the southern Lötschental valley, with homes and buildings partially submerged under a mass of brownish sludge. via REUTERS In recent days, the authorities had ordered the evacuation of about 300 people, as well as all livestock, from the village amid fears that the 52 million cubic feet glacier was at risk of collapse. Local authorities were deploying by helicopter and across the area to assess the damage, Jonas Jeitziner, a spokesman for the Lötschental crisis center, told The Associated Press by phone. Swiss glaciologists have repeatedly expressed concerns about a thaw in recent years, attributed in large part to global warming, that has accelerated the retreat of glaciers in Switzerland. 4 The village of Blatten in the Loetschental, on Sunday, May 18, 2025. AP 4 At a news conference, Swiss Environment Minister Albert Rösti lamented 'an extraordinary event' and said the government would take steps to help villagers who lost their homes. AP The landlocked Alpine country has the most glaciers of any country in Europe, and saw 4% of its total glacier volume disappear in 2023. That was the second-biggest decline in a single year after a 6% drop in 2022. 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 community. Brienz was evacuated again last year because of the threat of a further rockslide.
ABC News
7 days ago
- Climate
- ABC News
Rockslide buries Swiss Alps village of Blatten
A huge mass of rock and ice from a glacier has buried most of a Swiss Alps village. Video on social media and Swiss TV shows homes and buildings in Blatten, in the southern Lötschental valley, partially submerged by a brownish sludge. Regional police said a 64-year-old man was reported missing, and a search and rescue operation was underway. The village was evacuated earlier in the week, with about 300 people, as well as all livestock, moved. "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 local TV channel Canal9. The regional government said a large chunk of the Birch Glacier above the village broke off, causing the landslide. It also buried the nearby Lonza River bed. "There's a risk that the situation could get worse," Mr Ganzer said, alluding to the blocked river. He said the army was mobilised after earlier indications that the movement of the glacier was accelerating. At a news conference, Swiss Environment Minister Albert Rösti lamented "an extraordinary event" and said the government would take steps to help villagers who lost their homes. Swiss glaciologists have repeatedly expressed concerns about a thaw in recent years, attributed in large part to global warming, that has accelerated the retreat of glaciers in Switzerland. The landlocked Alpine country has the most glaciers of any country in Europe. 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 community. Brienz was evacuated again last year because of the threat of a further rockslide. AP
Times
09-05-2025
- Business
- Times
UK to Switzerland in five hours by high-speed train? Not so fast
Direct trains between the UK and Switzerland are a step closer after the two countries agreed to work together to make it happen. The journey time between London and Geneva could be cut to about five hours, without the need to change trains in Paris. At present the journey takes about seven and a half hours. Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, held talks with Albert Rösti, her Swiss counterpart, at St Pancras station on Thursday. They signed a memorandum of understanding, agreeing a joint effort to establish the route including border controls at either end and meeting Channel Tunnel safety rules. Alexander said direct railway services to Switzerland would offer 'an incredible passenger experience' but acknowledged there was 'a lot of detail to work through'.
