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DW
2 days ago
- Climate
- DW
How does Switzerland predict landslides? – DW – 05/30/2025
Switzerland is a success story in predicting landslides — but more must be done to help the rest of the world prepare for these deadly, unpredictable disasters. The destructive landslide in the Swiss village of Blatten is the latest natural disaster to hit valley communities in the Alpine nation. While Blatten was engulfed by a slick of icy sediment this week, early warnings of a potential landslide gave residents time to evacuate. Only one person — who chose to remain in his home — is currently unaccounted for. The search for him has been suspended. Switzerlandis an early warning success story. Government agencies there use a broad range of technologies and methods to assess risks that could threaten lives and property. This includes terrain mapping and continuous monitoring of rainfall, permafrost melt, groundwater levels, tectonic shifts and ground movement. This data allows authorities to maintain hazard risk maps across the country. "Every community in Switzerland that's affected by a hazard has a hazard map. They're federally mandated for the areas where people live," said Brian McArdell, a geomorphologist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL). In Blatten's case, officials issued alerts after a nearby rockfall destabilized the Birch Glacier. Combined with warming summer temperatures, the glacier fractured. A slurry of ice, sediment and mud then roared down the mountain to the village below. Swiss glacier collapse partially destroys village of Blatten To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "When you slam rock over ice, what you do is liquefy part of the ice," Daniel Farinotti, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich, told DW. "The ice melts, and that lubricates whatever you have." The Blatten landslide was particularly rare. "The sheer size, the amount of material that has been moved there, that's not something you see every day, not every year, not every decade in Switzerland," said Farinotti. "It's kind of a historic event." World's mountainous regions most at risk Steep slopes, unstable terrain and exposure to high rainfall or permafrost melt put mountain regions more at risk of landslides and avalanches. For valley communities in Switzerland, the potential for a landslide can mean entire towns need to be evacuated. Following the Blatten landslide, several nearby communities remain on alert, including for potential flooding. Brienz, a village around 25 miles (41 km) north of Blatten, is also preparing for possible evacuation. The town has faced repeated warningsand "near miss" rockslide events since 2023. "In general, debris flow is a mixture of coarse and fine sediment — so everything from boulders, to mud, to very fine sediments and water," said McArdell. "These events can occur quite suddenly and they're quite, quite dangerous." Regions with the highest landslide-related fatalities globally include the Himalayas, parts of Central and South America, Italy and Iran. A rockslide almost engulfted Brienz in Switzerland in 2023. The city remains on alert for possible evacuations Image: Gian Ehrenzeller/KEYSTONE/picture alliance Predicting landslides remains a challenge While landslides can be forecast, predictions tend to be "probabilistic" rather than precise, Fausto Guzzetti, a now-retired geomorphologist formerly with Italy's Institute for Applied Mathematics and Information Technologies (IMATI), told DW. "We can predict in [a] general area, it could be in a municipality, it can be a catchment," Guzzetti said. Unlike earthquakes and floods, monitoring landslides is far more difficult. While earth tremors can be registered using seismic instruments, and floods can be quickly detected visually, most landslides are unnoticed. "Tens of thousands of landslides simply go unreported," Guzzetti added. "We don't know where they are, and this complicates the ability to forecast them." Even small slides — just a few meters in length — can be deadly, especially if they carry large debris or occur near homes or roads. "A cobble that hits a car or hits a person walking along a road can kill," said Guzzetti, "That's significant." Climate change is also expected to increase rainfall in mountain regions, which in turn is predicted to cause more frequent small-scale landslides. Global call for action Efforts are being made to strengthen international monitoring and preparedness for landslides and glacial melt. Can we survive if the world's glaciers melt? To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The International Conference on Glaciers' Preservation is currently being held in Tajikistan, where Farinotti expects the release of a "Glacier Declaration" urging greater action to protect ice masses from the effects of climate change. "[It will] call for various actions and, among others, it will call for increased preparedness against risk deriving from cryospheric hazards, so avalanches," he said. Guzzetti also highlighted the UN's Early Warnings for All initiative, which aims to establish a global early warning system by 2027. If achieved, this could be a major step toward saving lives from natural hazards. While wealthy nations like Switzerland have reliable infrastructure to warn communities of potential disasters, many others are still playing catch-up. According to UN figures, only 108 countries had the capacity for "multi-hazard early warning systems" last year though that is more than double the number from 2015. The benefits are clear, said Guzzetti, pointing to the Blatten evacuation: "It seems that they were very good at evacuating the town in time, so that fatalities were nil, or very small." "I think it points to the fact that we are moving in the right direction." Edited by: J. Wingard
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Climate
- Daily Mirror
Swiss glacier wipeout threatens two more villages as dam could burst
The shocking event in Valais on Wednesday, May 28, caused the village of Blatten to be subjected to an immense amount of debris consisting of various pieces of rock and ice. Looming floodwaters are threatening to strike two more Swiss villages in after a glacier collapse saw nearly an entire village become buried under snow. The shocking avalanche in Valais on Wednesday, May 28, saw the village of Blatten subjected to an immense amount of debris consisting of various pieces of rock and ice. It occurred after a chunk of the Birch Glacier in the south of Switzerland fell off, with broken pieces of the wedge tumbling down the mountain and leaving a huge dust cloud in the area around the village, with 90 per cent of the town now being buried in debris. The 300 people who live in Blatten were evacuated before the landslide, but authorities have since stated that one individual is still missing. Following the dramatic turn of events, the two villages of Kippel and Wiler have been ordered to evacuate by authorities as a safety precaution. This is due to the earlier landslide now blocking the river Lonza, creating a makeshift dam that could burst and devastate the two settlements while also sweeping the debris from yesterday's event into the area. Antoine Jacquod, a military security official, told the Keystone-ATS news agency: "'There is a serious risk of an ice jam that could flood the valley below." The army has since made a statement that equipment such as water pumps and diggers were being made available as needed. Christoph Hegg of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) told Blick:"The lake behind the debris is getting higher and higher. And the water masses are pressing on the dam. This increases the pressure." He added: "The worst case scenario is that the load on the dam becomes too great and the dam breaks. The water masses then rush into the valley and, depending on the strength of the material, are likely to sweep the debris with them." Local politician Christophe Darbellay told news outlet 20 Minuten that Blatten had "disappeared from the map", while locals told the outlet that a sewage treatment facility and power plant which had recently been built could be destroyed by the potential flood posed by the river Lonza. Blatten's president Matthias Bellwald said during a press conference yesterday that the "unimaginable" had happened. He said: "We have lost our village, but not our hearts. "Even though the village lies under a huge pile of rubble, we know where our homes and our church must be rebuilt." Climate change has been proposed as a likely reason for the devastating events seen in the region as a result of the Birch Glacier. Matthias Huss, head of the Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS), said that rocks in the permafrost zone of the mountain had possibly loosened and contributed to the collapse. He told Reuters:"Unexpected things happen at places that we have not seen for hundreds of years, most probably due to climate change."
