Latest news with #MatthiasEbener
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
One person missing after glacier collapse buries Swiss village
May 29 (UPI) -- Rescuers in the Swiss Alps were searching for at least one person missing after 1.5 million cubic meters of ice, rock and mud from an imploding glacier engulfed a village in the Lotschental Valley in the southwest of the country. Authorities, including the military, were using drones and helicopters to access the area to search for casualties and assess the damage after a huge section of the Birch glacier, which sits atop Kleine Nesthorn above the village of Blatten at an altitude of between 8,350 and 11,000 feet, broke off Wednesday afternoon. "An unbelievable amount of material thundered down into the valley," said Valais Canton spokesperson Matthias Ebener, who confirmed one person was unaccounted for but gave no further details. The 300 inhabitants of the village, 35 miles north of Zermatt, were evacuated nine days earlier because of the threat posed by the Birch glacier, which geologists said had become unstable due to thawing. "The unimaginable has happened," said Blatten Mayor Matthias Bellwald, vowing it was not the end for the village, which has been continuously inhabited since the 13th century. "We have lost our village, but not our heart. We will support each other and console each other. After a long night, it will be morning again," said Bellwald. The federal government in Bern pledged financial assistance to residents to enable them to remain living in the area, even if it is not possible to return to the village. However, the head of the agency with responsibility for natural hazards in the Valais region, geologist Raphael Mayoraz, warned that other settlements nearby may need to be evacuated as well. "We don't know yet what's left on top, but almost everything fell. It's the worst of the envisaged scenarios," he said. Experts linked the collapse to warming temperatures caused by climate change, which is accelerating melting, not only of mountain glaciers, but also of critical permafrost in high mountain ranges. In 2023, the village of Brienz, 35 miles away, was turned into a ghost town after its 3,100 residents were evacuated due to the danger from landslides caused by melting. Residents were eventually allowed to return but had to leave for a second time in November, after authorities warned it was unsafe to remain. The BBC said the latest audit of the state of glaciers in Switzerland showed they could all disappear in less than 100 years unless global temperature rise is limited to the 1.5 degrees Celsius increase above pre-industrial levels set by the Paris Climate agreement in 2015.
UPI
2 days ago
- Climate
- UPI
One person missing after glacier collapse buries Swiss village
The aftermath of a glacier collapse that sent millions of tons of ice, rock and mud careening down a Swiss mountainside Wednesday, burying the village of Blatten in the Canton of Valais in southwestern Switzerland. Photo by Christophe Bott/EPA-EFE May 29 (UPI) -- Rescuers in the Swiss Alps were searching for at least one person missing after 1.5 million cubic meters of ice, rock and mud from an imploding glacier engulfed a village in the Lotschental Valley in the southwest of the country. Authorities, including the military, were using drones and helicopters to access the area to search for casualties and assess the damage after a huge section of the Birch glacier, which sits atop Kleine Nesthorn above the village of Blatten at an altitude of between 8,350 and 11,000 feet, broke off Wednesday afternoon. "An unbelievable amount of material thundered down into the valley," said Valais Canton spokesperson Matthias Ebener, who confirmed one person was unaccounted for but gave no further details. The 300 inhabitants of the village, 35 miles north of Zermatt, were evacuated nine days earlier because of the threat posed by the Birch glacier, which geologists said had become unstable due to thawing. "The unimaginable has happened," said Blatten Mayor Matthias Bellwald, vowing it was not the end for the village, which has been continuously inhabited since the 13th century. "We have lost our village, but not our heart. We will support each other and console each other. After a long night, it will be morning again," said Bellwald. The federal government in Bern pledged financial assistance to residents to enable them to remain living in the area, even if it is not possible to return to the village. However, the head of the agency with responsibility for natural hazards in the Valais region, geologist Raphael Mayoraz, warned that other settlements nearby may need to be evacuated as well. "We don't know yet what's left on top, but almost everything fell. It's the worst of the envisaged scenarios," he said. Experts linked the collapse to warming temperatures caused by climate change, which is accelerating melting, not only of mountain glaciers, but also of critical permafrost in high mountain ranges. In 2023, the village of Brienz, 35 miles away, was turned into a ghost town after its 3,100 residents were evacuated due to the danger from landslides caused by melting. Residents were eventually allowed to return but had to leave for a second time in November, after authorities warned it was unsafe to remain. The BBC said the latest audit of the state of glaciers in Switzerland showed they could all disappear in less than 100 years unless global temperature rise is limited to the 1.5 degrees Celsius increase above pre-industrial levels set by the Paris Climate agreement in 2015.
CBS News
2 days ago
- Climate
- CBS News
Partial glacier collapse causes landslide that buries 90% of Swiss village
Geneva — A 64-year-old man remained missing Thursday after a huge mass of rock and ice from a glacier crashed down a Swiss mountainside the day before. The landslide sent plumes of dust skyward and coated with mud nearly all of an Alpine village that authorities had evacuated earlier this month as a precaution. State Councilor Stéphane Ganzer told Radio Télévision Suisse that 90% of the village was destroyed. "An unbelievable amount of material thundered down into the valley," the Reuters news agency quotes Matthias Ebener, a spokesperson for local authorities as saying. Mud and rocks slide down a mountain after a glacier partially collapsed, covering most of the village of Blatten, Switzerland on May 28, 2025, in this screen grab taken from a handout video. Pomona Media / Handout via Reuters "We've lost our village," Blatten Mayor Matthias Bellwald told a press conference, according to Reuters. "The village is under rubble. We will rebuild." The Cantonal Police of Valais said that a search and rescue operation was underway for the missing man, whose name wasn't made public, and that it involved a drone with a thermal camera. 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 is a serious risk of an ice jam that could flood the valley below," Antoine Jacquod, a military security official, told the Keystone-ATS news agency. "We're going to try to assess its dimensions today." As a precaution, 16 people were evacuated late Wednesday from two villages located downstream from the disaster area. "It's like a mountain, and of course, it creates a small lake that gets bigger and bigger," explained Raphael Mayoraz, the cantonal official in charge of natural hazard management, Wednesday evening. Mud and rocks cover a village after a glacier collapse onto Blatten, Switzerland, on May 28, 2025, in this screen grab taken from a video. KEYSTONE-SDA via REUTERS Video on social media and Swiss television showed that the mudslide near Blatten, in the southern Lötschental valley, partially submerged homes and other buildings under a mass of brownish sludge. In recent days, authorities had ordered the evacuation of about 300 people, as well as all livestock, from the village amid fears that the 52 million-cubic foot glacier was at risk of collapse. The Valais cantonal government has meanwhile asked the army to provide clearing equipment and pumps to secure the riverbed. "The deposit ... is not very stable, and debris flow is possible within the deposit itself (which) makes any intervention in the disaster area impossible for the time being," cantonal authorities stated, adding there was risk on both sides of the valley. 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, 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. The incident comes just days afte the bodies of five skiers were found on a glacier above the Swiss resort town of Zermatt. Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
The Independent
2 days ago
- Climate
- The Independent
One person missing after Glacier collapse buries parts of Swiss village under mud and rock
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.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Swiss Village Buried by Massive Glacial Collapse
A chunk of the Birch glacier collapsed Wednesday, May 28, 2025, burying large portions of the small Swiss village, Blatten, under a mass of snow, ice, and debris, according to news May 19, residents of Blatten, which normally has a population of about 300, were evacuated after geologists determined that they were threatened by the risk of rock and ice fall. Still, Matthias Ebener, a spokesperson for local authorities in the canton of Valais, said one person is missing, Reuters collapse destroyed several homes in the village and, according to generated an earthquake measuring 3.1 on the Richter scale. Footage shared of the avalanche shows a deluge of snow, ice, and rock roaring down a Swiss mountainside. Thick brown plumes of debris erupted around the slide. Tap or click the embedded video below to watch the collapse to keep up with the best stories and photos in skiing? Subscribe to the new Powder To The People newsletter for weekly updates. Karin Keller-Suter, the president of Switzerland, acknowledged the glacial collapse in a post on X.'It's terrible to lose your home,' she wrote. 'In these difficult times, my thoughts are with the residents of Blatten." The natural disaster at Blatten follows another incident when, in 2023, residents of the Swiss village of Brienz were forced to leave their homes as the mountains above them deteriorated, the BBC reported that, according to experts, the link between the collapse of the Birch glacier and climate isn't yet a changing climate has accelerated global glacial recession and, according to a fact sheet published by the Swiss Academy of Sciences, global warming can destabilize rock faces previously supported by glaciers or permafrost, heightening the risk of rockfalls and an interview, Daniel Farinotti, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich, said a portion of Switzerland's glaciers could be preserved if 'we manage to cut global greenhouse gas emissions quickly.' However, Farinotti added that if greenhouse gas emissions aren't reduced, all of the Swiss glaciers could vanish by prospect doesn't just threaten an increased prevalence of natural hazards—it also puts Swiss summer skiing destinations at risk. Across the country, seven of the nine ski resorts that offered glacier skiing have ceased summer operations, according to a paper published in the Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights. Today, only Zermatt and Saas-Fee's summer glacier skiing offerings Village Buried by Massive Glacial Collapse first appeared on Powder on May 28, 2025
