Swiss village of Blatten buried after glacier collapse causes devastation; scientists attribute disaster to climate change

WILER, May 30 — Residents are grappling with the overwhelming destruction caused by a massive glacier slab that buried most of their scenic Swiss village, in what scientists believe is a stark example of climate change’s effects on the Alps.

On Wednesday, millions of cubic meters of ice, mud, and rock cascaded down a mountain, engulfing the village of Blatten. The few remaining houses were later flooded. The village’s 300 inhabitants had been evacuated earlier this month after part of the mountain behind the Birch Glacier showed signs of collapse.

Rescue teams, using search dogs and thermal drones, have been searching for a missing 64-year-old man but so far have found no trace. Local authorities suspended the search on Thursday afternoon, citing unstable debris piles and warning of potential further rockfalls.

With the Swiss army closely monitoring the area, flooding worsened as massive debris mounds nearly two kilometers wide blocked the River Lonza’s flow, creating a large lake amid the wreckage and raising fears that the buildup could suddenly break loose.

Stephane Ganzer, head of the security division for Valais canton, told reporters that water levels were rising by 80 centimeters per hour due to the blocked river and melting glacier ice.

Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter cut short her visit to Ireland to come to the site on Friday, her office announced.

“I don’t want to talk right now. I lost everything yesterday. I hope you understand,” said a middle-aged woman from Blatten, who declined to give her name as she sat alone in front of a church in nearby Wiler.

The road leading to the valley now abruptly ends at the vast mud and debris covering her village.

A thin cloud of dust lingered over Kleines Nesthorn Mountain, where the rockslide occurred, while a helicopter hovered overhead.

Werner Bellwald, 65, a cultural studies expert, lost his wooden family home built in 1654 in Ried, a hamlet adjacent to Blatten that was also wiped out by the disaster.

“You can’t even tell a settlement was ever here,” he told Reuters. “Things happened here that no one thought possible.”

Profound shock

Officials fear the worst-case scenario would be a debris surge breaching the nearby Ferden Dam, though Valais canton’s Ganzer said this remains unlikely. The dam has been emptied as a precaution to act as a buffer.

Local authorities reported that buildings in Blatten that survived the landslide are now flooded, and some residents from surrounding villages have also been evacuated.

About 50 army personnel, along with water pumps, diggers, and heavy machinery, stand ready to assist when it is safe to do so.

Authorities have been airlifting livestock from the area, according to Jonas Jeitziner, a local official in Wiler, as a few sheep were seen scrambling from a container lowered by helicopter.

Asked about the future, Jeitziner said, looking at the mud-covered landscape, “The shock is still so deep that it’s hard to think about what comes next.”

The disaster has reignited concerns over rising temperatures’ impact on Alpine permafrost, where thawing has destabilized rock formations and created new mountain hazards.

The Birch Glacier has been gradually moving downhill for years, pressured by shifting debris near its summit.

Matthias Huss, head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland, pointed to climate change as a likely cause behind the loosening of rock and permafrost that triggered the collapse.

“Unexpected events are occurring in places we haven’t seen in hundreds of years, most likely due to climate change,” he told Reuters.— Reuters