Mud and rock bury Swiss village after glacier collapse

GENEVA: A huge chunk of a glacier in the Swiss Alps broke off on Wednesday afternoon, causing a deluge of ice, mud and rock to bury part of a mountain village evacuated earlier this month 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 village of Blatten, the river running through it and the wooded sides of the surrounding valley.

“An unbelievable amount of material thundered down into the valley,” said Matthias Ebener, a spokesperson for local authorities in the southwestern canton of Valais.

One person was missing, Ebener said.

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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, whose roughly 300 inhabitants were evacuated on May 19 after geologists had identified the risk of an imminent avalanche of rock and ice from above, were hit hard by the rockslide, Ebener said.

SRF said houses were destroyed in the village nestled in the Loetschental 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.