A huge mass of rock and ice from a glacier thundered down a Swiss mountainside Wednesday, sending plumes of dust skyward and coating with mud nearly all of an Alpine village that authorities had evacuated earlier this month as a precaution.
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, reports The Associated Press.
On Thursday May 29, regional police said they had suspended their search for a 64-year-old man was reported missing, citing unsafe conditions.
Video on social media and Swiss TV showed the mudslide near Blatten, in the southern Ltschental valley, with homes and buildings partially submerged under a mass of brownish sludge.
"What I can tell you at the moment is that about 90% of the village is covered or destroyed, so it's a major catastrophe that has happened here in Blatten," Stephane Ganzer, the head of security in the southern Valais region, told local TV channel Canal9 on Wednesday.
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's a risk that the situation could get worse," Ganzer said, alluding to the blocked river.
He said the army had been mobilized after earlier indications that the movement of the glacier was accelerating.
Seeing Blatten buried again and again, from every angle...Properly staggering!
At a news conference, Swiss Environment Minister Albert Rsti lamented "an extraordinary event" and said the government would take steps to help villagers who lost their homes.
In recent days the authorities had ordered the evacuation of about 300 people, as well as all livestock, from the village amid fears that the 1.5 million cubic metre glacier was at risk of collapse.
Local authorities were deploying by helicopter and across the area to assess the damage, Jonas Jeitziner, a spokesman for the Ltschental crisis center, told The Associated Press by phone.
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.
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 community. Brienz was evacuated again last year because of the threat of a further rockslide.
This Associated Press story was republished by The Canadian Press on May 28, 2025.
Source: The Energy Mix
