Glacier collapse buries Blotten, one lacking | EUROtoday

Listen to the audio model of the article

A 64 -year -old man is lacking after a huge mass of rock, and ice, coming from a glacier, hit a mountain facet in Switzerland, overlaying mud virtually completely The Alpine Village of Blatten. In current days, the authorities had ordered the evacuation of about 300 folks, along with all cattlefrom the village, fearing that the glacier – equal to 1.5 million cubic meters – might collapse.

Leukerbad is 15 km from the landslide

Leukerbad is the biggest thermal nation within the Alps

In the next days the mass of rocky particles, unofficially quantified in 9 million tons, had triggered the motion downstream of the glacier. Due to the big weight of the landslide materials, the glacier began transferring in direction of the valley at rising pace, till it reaches 10 meters per day.

In the final 48 hours of ice plenty, fragment with rock and snow, they started to go downstream (the primary Tuesday on the finish of the afternoon and the second within the early hours of Wednesday), till the essential collapse occurred on the afternoon of May 28, 2025.

This was reported by the Regional Police on May 28, 2025, speaking about analysis and rescue operations with the assistance of a drone outfitted with a thermal tube.

“What I can say at the moment is that about 90% of the village is covered or destroyed, so it is a catastrophe of great proportions that took place here in Blatten,” mentioned Stephane Ganzer, head of safety of the Valais Canton, on the native broadcaster Canal9.