A large section of a glacier in the Swiss Alps has broken off, sending a torrent of ice, mud and rock underwater, submerging large parts of a village that was evacuated as a safety precaution earlier this month.
Regional police said a 64-year-old man was reported missing and search and rescue efforts were underway using a drone equipped with a thermal camera.
"What I can tell you right now is that about 90 percent of the village is covered or destroyed, so it is a major disaster that has occurred here in Blatten," said Stephane Ganzer, security chief for the southern Valais region.
Images shared on social media and on Swiss television showed the mudslide near Blatten in the southern Lötschental valley, with homes and buildings partially buried under a large mass of mud.
The regional government announced that a significant part of the Birch Glacier above the village had broken away, causing landslides and covering the nearby Lonza River bed, increasing the risk of dammed water flows.
Swiss Environment Minister Albert Rösti held a press conference expressing regret over what he described as an “extraordinary event” and said the government would take measures to help villagers who lost their homes.
Over the past few days, authorities have ordered the evacuation of around 1,5 people and all their livestock from the village over fears that the 300 million cubic metre glacier could be about to collapse.
Swiss glaciologists have consistently expressed concern about the accelerating thaw observed in recent years, largely attributed to global warming, of glaciers in Switzerland.
The landlocked Alpine country has the largest number of glaciers of any European country and lost 2023 percent of its total glacier volume in 4. This was the second-largest loss in a single year after a 2022 percent drop in 6.
