Glacier collapse in Switzerland destroys village (7 photos + 3 videos)

Category: Fires and Catastrophes, PEGI 0+

3 June 2025

A glacier has collapsed on the village of Blatten in Switzerland. 300 residents and a herd of 52 cows were evacuated a few days before the disaster, but one person is still missing. The avalanche has swallowed up 90% of the village.

The terrifying videos show a giant cloud of ice and debris rushing down the mountainside into the valley.

SRF TV has published footage of a landslide that has covered a village and the river flowing through it.

The missing 64-year-old resident was in the area at the time of the incident. Three rescuers arrived at the scene, and a drone with a thermal imager was launched.

"Despite all efforts, the man has still not been found," police said.

"This is a real disaster that has happened here in Blatten," said Stefan Ganzer, a spokesman for the canton of Valais, where the village is located. He added that the situation could get worse given the blocked river.

Many experts believe that the collapsing mountainside played a significant role in the incident. However, Christian Huggel, an ecologist at the University of Zurich, believes that the key factor was the warming in the Alps.

According to him, the damage to Blatten was unprecedented in the Swiss Alps over the past two centuries.

Swiss glaciers, noticeably affected by climate change, lost about 10% of their volume from 2022 to 2023. This is equivalent to the volume they lost between 1960 and 1990. This winter, there was 13 percent less snow than in 2010-2020.

Last Monday, about 200,000 cubic meters of rock came down from the mountainside, but by the next day the situation had stabilized. And yet, disaster was inevitable. Rescue services warned people of the danger and closed the main road to the valley after the evacuation.

“How terrible it is to lose your home,” said Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter.