Glacier collapse buries Swiss mountain village
GENEVA—A huge chunk of a glacier in the Swiss Alps broke off on Wednesday, causing a deluge of ice, mud and rock that buried most of a mountain village that had been evacuated due to the risk of a rockslide, authorities said.
One person is currently missing, officials said.
Drone footage broadcast by Swiss national broadcaster SRF showed a vast plain of mud and soil completely covering part of the southwestern village of Blatten, the river running through it and the wooded sides of the surrounding valley.
“We’ve lost our village,” Matthias Bellwald, the mayor of Blatten told a press conference after the slide. “The village is under rubble. We will rebuild.”
Stephane Ganzer, an official in the canton of Valais where Blatten is located, told Swiss media that about 90 percent of the village was covered by the landslide.
Missing
“An unbelievable amount of material thundered down into the valley,” said Matthias Ebener, a spokesperson for local authorities.
One person was missing, Ebener said. Officials gave no further details on the person.
Officials said millions of cubic meters of rock and soil have tumbled down since Blatten was first evacuated this month when part of the mountain behind the glacier began to crumble, sparking warnings it could bring the ice mass down with it.
Loss of permafrost
A video showed the dramatic moment when the glacier partially collapsed, creating a huge cloud that covered part of the mountain as rock and debris came cascading down towards the village.
Experts said it was difficult to assess the extent to which rising temperatures spurred by climate change had triggered the collapse because of the role the crumbling mountainside had played.
Christian Huggel, a professor of environment and climate at University of Zurich, said while various factors were at play in Blatten, it was known that local permafrost had been affected by warmer temperatures in the Alps.
