Latest news with #KarinKellerSutter
Washington Post
4 days ago
- General
- Washington Post
Swiss president pledges aid for Alpine villagers left homeless after glacier collapse
GENEVA — Switzerland's president on Friday said evacuees from an Alpine village whose homes and businesses were destroyed by a landslide caused by a glacier collapse were 'not alone,' and the government was calculating ways to help. Karin Keller-Sutter spoke after a helicopter flight to see for herself the damage to the village of Blatten that was largely destroyed on Wednesday as an estimated 10 millions of tons of mud, ice and rock thundered down from the Birch glacier overhead.
Associated Press
4 days ago
- General
- Associated Press
Swiss president pledges aid for Alpine villagers left homeless after glacier collapse
GENEVA (AP) — Switzerland's president on Friday said evacuees from an Alpine village whose homes and businesses were destroyed by a landslide caused by a glacier collapse were 'not alone,' and the government was calculating ways to help. Karin Keller-Sutter spoke after a helicopter flight to see for herself the damage to the village of Blatten that was largely destroyed on Wednesday as an estimated 10 millions of tons of mud, ice and rock thundered down from the Birch glacier overhead. 'The force with which the mountain here wiped out an entire village is indescribable,' Keller-Sutter said. 'I'd like to tell you all that you're not alone. The whole of Switzerland is with you, and not just (people) in Switzerland.' Officials limited access to the area and warned that waters from the Lonza River, which has been dammed up by deposits stacked tens of meters high over a 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) swath of valley, had pooled into a lake. The future course of those waters could not yet be predicted precisely. 'Unfortunately, the danger has not yet been averted,' Keller-Sutter said. While the authorities were not able to prevent the natural disaster, the country has the 'expertise and financial resources' to cope with such events, she added. Blatten had been evacuated about 10 days earlier after experts determined a growing threat from the loosening glacier. However, a 64-year-old man remains missing and authorities have called off a search for him. Stephane Ganzer, an elected official who runs security in the Valais, said no evacuations were as-yet planned for villages downstream from Blatten that could face flooding if the Lonza's welled-up waters break through the pileup of mud. 'We don't want anybody else to go missing,' he said. 'We will put no person in danger on the ground: No police officer, no soldier, no specialist, no member of civil security or fire squads.' He added: 'Someone asked me before: 'Who's the chief in charge here?' And I replied, there's only one chief: nature.'
The Independent
4 days ago
- General
- The Independent
Swiss president pledges aid for Alpine villagers left homeless after glacier collapse
Switzerland's president on Friday said evacuees from an Alpine village whose homes and businesses were destroyed by a landslide caused by a glacier collapse were 'not alone," and the government was calculating ways to help. Karin Keller-Sutter spoke after a helicopter flight to see for herself the damage to the village of Blatten that was largely destroyed on Wednesday as an estimated 10 millions of tons of mud, ice and rock thundered down from the Birch glacier overhead. 'The force with which the mountain here wiped out an entire village is indescribable,' Keller-Sutter said. 'I'd like to tell you all that you're not alone. The whole of Switzerland is with you, and not just (people) in Switzerland.' Officials limited access to the area and warned that waters from the Lonza River, which has been dammed up by deposits stacked tens of meters high over a 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) swath of valley, had pooled into a lake. The future course of those waters could not yet be predicted precisely. 'Unfortunately, the danger has not yet been averted,' Keller-Sutter said. While the authorities were not able to prevent the natural disaster, the country has the 'expertise and financial resources' to cope with such events, she added. Blatten had been evacuated about 10 days earlier after experts determined a growing threat from the loosening glacier. However, a 64-year-old man remains missing and authorities have called off a search for him. Stephane Ganzer, an elected official who runs security in the Valais, said no evacuations were as-yet planned for villages downstream from Blatten that could face flooding if the Lonza's welled-up waters break through the pileup of mud. "We don't want anybody else to go missing," he said. 'We will put no person in danger on the ground: No police officer, no soldier, no specialist, no member of civil security or fire squads.' He added: 'Someone asked me before: 'Who's the chief in charge here?' And I replied, there's only one chief: nature.'
Free Malaysia Today
4 days ago
- Business
- Free Malaysia Today
Swiss watch exports to US soar as time ticks on tariffs
Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter held trade talks with a US representative in Geneva earlier this month. (EPA Images pic) ZURICH : Swiss watch exports to the US soared last month as US President Donald Trump called time out on tariffs, today's industry figures showed. US-bound shipments soared by 149.2% in April compared to the same month a year ago, according to the federation of the Swiss watch industry. Trump imposed a 10% tariff on imports from around the world in early April but hit dozens of countries with steeper duties, with Swiss goods facing a 31% levy. The US president, however, paused the higher tariffs until July to give time for negotiations. The surge in Swiss watch exports to the US was 'mainly the result of early shipments' as higher US tariffs loom, the federation said. 'The sharp rise in exports is therefore more a reflection of a one-off response to an uncertain commercial situation than a genuine sign of a structural strengthening of demand,' it added. Global Swiss watch exports rose by 18.2% in April to 2.5 billion Swiss francs (US$3 billion). Without the exceptional US shipments, overall exports would have fallen by 6.4% due to a slump in China and Hong Kong, the federation said. The US is by far the main market for the Swiss watch industry, whose timepieces must be made domestically to earn the 'made in Switzerland' label. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter held trade talks with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Geneva earlier this month.
Malay Mail
4 days ago
- General
- Malay Mail
Swiss village Blatten buried as glacier collapse wreaks havoc, scientists blame climate change
WILER, May 30 — Residents struggled yesterday to absorb the scale of devastation caused by a huge slab of glacier that buried most of their picturesque Swiss village, in what scientists suspect is a dramatic example of climate change's impact on the Alps. A deluge of millions of cubic meters of ice, mud and rock crashed down a mountain on Wednesday, engulfing the village of Blatten and the few houses that remained were later flooded. Its 300 residents had already been evacuated earlier in May after part of the mountain behind the Birch Glacier began to crumble. Rescue teams with search dogs and thermal drone scans have continued looking for a missing 64-year-old man but have found nothing. Local authorities suspended the search on Thursday afternoon, saying the debris mounds were too unstable for now and warned of further rockfalls. With the Swiss army closely monitoring the situation, flooding worsened during the day as vast mounds of debris almost two kilometers across clogged the path of the River Lonza, causing a huge lake to form amid the wreckage and raising fears that the morass could dislodge. Water levels have been rising by 80 centimetres an hour from the blocked river and melting glacier ice, Stephane Ganzer, head of the security division for the Valais canton, told reporters. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter is returning early from high-level talks in Ireland and will visit the site on Friday, her office said. 'I don't want to talk just now. I lost everything yesterday. I hope you understand,' said one middle-aged woman from Blatten, declining to give her name as she sat alone disconsolately in front of a church in the neighbouring village of Wiler. Nearby, the road ran along the valley before ending abruptly at the mass of mud and debris now blanketing her own village. A thin cloud of dust hung in the air over the Kleines Nesthorn Mountain where the rockslide occurred while a helicopter buzzed overhead. Werner Bellwald, a 65-year-old cultural studies expert, lost the wooden family house built in 1654 where he lived in Ried, a hamlet next to Blatten also wiped out by the deluge. 'You can't tell that there was ever a settlement there,' he told Reuters. 'Things happened there that no one here thought were possible.' Profound shock The worst scenario would be that a wave of debris bursts the nearby Ferden Dam, Valais canton official Ganzer said. He added that the chances of this further mudslide were currently unlikely, noting that the dam had been emptied as a precaution so it could act as a buffer zone. Local authorities said that the buildings in Blatten which had emerged intact from the landslide are now flooded and that some residents of nearby villages had been evacuated. The army said around 50 personnel as well as water pumps, diggers and other heavy equipment were on standby to provide relief when it was safe. Authorities were airlifting livestock out of the area, said Jonas Jeitziner, a local official in Wiler, as a few sheep scrambled out of a container lowered from a helicopter. Asked how he felt about the future, he said, gazing towards the plain of mud: 'Right now, the shock is so profound that one can't think about it yet.' The catastrophe has revived concern about the impact of rising temperatures on Alpine permafrost where thawing has loosened some rock structures, creating new mountain hazards. For years, the Birch Glacier has been creeping down the mountainside, pressured by shifting debris near the summit. Matthias Huss, head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland, pointed to the likely influence of climate change in loosening the rock mass among the permafrost, which triggered the collapse. 'Unexpected things happen at places that we have not seen for hundreds of years, most probably due to climate change,' he told Reuters. — Reuters
