A huge section of a glacier in the Swiss Alps has broken off, causing a deluge of ice, mud and rock to bury most of a village evacuated earlier this month due to the risk of a rockslide.
Drone footage broadcast by Swiss national broadcaster SRF showed a vast plain of mud and soil completely covering part of the village of Blatten, the river running through it and the wooded sides of the surrounding valley.
“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.
The regional government said in a statement that a large chunk of the Birch Glacier located above the village had broken off, causing the landslide which as well as covering the village had also buried the nearby Lonza riverbed, raising the possibility of dammed water flows.
“There’s a risk that the situation could get worse,” Ganzer said.
“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.”
Matthias Ebener, a spokesperson for local authorities in the southwestern canton of Valais, said one person was missing, adding: “An unbelievable amount of material thundered down into the valley.”
The rubble of shattered wooden buildings could be seen on the flanks of the huge mass of earth in the drone footage.
Buildings and infrastructure in Blatten were hit hard by the rockslide, Ebener said. The village’s about 300 inhabitants had been evacuated on 19 May after geologists had identified the risk of an imminent avalanche of rock and ice from above.
SRF said houses were destroyed in the village nestled in the Lötschental valley in southern Switzerland.
Swiss president Karin Keller-Sutter expressed her solidarity with the local population as emergency services warned people 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.
Authorities have been monitoring the slopes above Blatten since ordering residents to leave their homes.
A video shared widely on social media showed the dramatic moment when the glacier partially collapsed, creating a huge cloud that covered part of the mountain as rock and debris came rumbling down into the outskirts of the village.
With reporting by Reuters and Associated Press
