Swiss village buried under millions of cubic meters of debris when a glacier collapsed
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On Wednesday May 28, the collapse of Birch Glacier in the Swiss Alps buried nearly the entire village of Blatten under ice, mud, and rock.
According to Global News, authorities had evacuated the village’s 300 residents on May 19, due to warnings about the glacier's s instability. On Thursday, after the collapse, one person reportedly remained unaccounted for.
Drone footage from Swiss broadcaster SRF shows mud and debris covering parts of the town, including the river and valley slopes.
Stephane Ganzer, the head of security in the southern Valais region, said on the local TV channel Canal 9:
“What I can tell you at the moment is that about 90 per cent of the village is covered or destroyed, so it’s a major catastrophe that has happened here in Blatten,”
He added that it wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was injured.
Swiss authorities have deployed the army’s disaster relief unit and search-and-rescue helicopters to evaluate the extent of the destruction. Government officials are also en route to the site, according to the BBC.
Also according to the BBC, scientists have long warned that some alpine communities face growing risks due to glacial melting. Two years ago, residents of the town of Brienz in eastern Switzerland were evacuated as the unstable mountainside above them began to collapse.
Experts suggest that climate change and the loss of permafrost may have contributed to the glacier’s instability.
However, other experts interviewed by Reuters noted that determining the exact impact of climate change on the collapse was challenging, given the significant role played by the unstable mountainside.
Christian Huggel, an environmental and climate professor at the University of Zurich, explained that multiple factors contributed to the event in Blatten, but confirmed that rising temperatures in the Alps had affected local permafrost.
Officials said millions of cubic meters of rock and soil have collapsed Since Blatten’s evacuation earlier this month. as the mountain behind the glacier was known to be destabilizing.
Blatten’s mayor, Matthias Bellwald, described the event as catastrophic but vowed to rebuild. The Swiss government continues to monitor the area for further risks.