
A village in the Swiss Alps has been buried beneath ice, rock and mud after a massive piece of a nearby glacier collapsed.
On Wednesday, a landslide from the mountain side of Birch Glacier — located in the Lötschental valley in northern Switzerland — flattened homes in the Alpine town of Blatten after a large chunk of the glacier broke off.
The collapse occurred as a result of a “cascading disaster,” Davies said. There is also concern of flooding in the River Lonza due to the debris from the landslide.
The mountain side of the glacier had been unstable since last week, when millions of pounds of rock debris fell onto the glacier surface, Davies said. The load, along with warm temperatures on Monday, accelerated the glacier’s collapse.
The melting of Switzerland’s glaciers could result in long-term reductions in the country’s water supply, according to the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research. Melting may also contribute to rising sea levels in the next century, climate scientists say.
A quarter of Switzerland’s glaciers could be saved if global warming is kept to under a 2-degree Celsius rise, the experts said.
source
The Swiss village of Blatten has been partially destroyed after a huge chunk of glacier crashed down into the valley.
Although the village had been evacuated some days ago because of fears the Birch glacier was disintegrating, one person has been reported missing, and many homes have been completely flattened.
The village's 300 inhabitants had to leave their homes on 19 May after geologists monitoring the area warned that the glacier appeared unstable. Now many of them may never be able to return.