Swiss village buried in glacier collapse
A village in Switzerland was buried in a recent glacier collapse, according to Swiss officials.
“Almost the entire Birch Glacier, located above Blatten, collapsed, causing a gigantic landslide,” the government of the canton of Valais said in a Thursday press release translated from French.
“At the bottom of the valley, a huge deposit of ice and rock, several dozen meters thick and approximately two kilometers long, buried most of the village of Blatten. The damage is considerable,” the press release continued.
The Valais government also said there was a missing person and that numerous “resources have been deployed to deal with this situation."
In a Wednesday post on the social platform X translated from German, Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter said it is “terrible to lose your home.”
“I feel for the residents of Blatten at this time,” she added.
According to a Swiss tourism website, Blatten is “is the highest village in the Lötschental Valley” and is in southwest Switzerland. “For the time being, given the risks and geological instability, any intervention in the disaster area is impossible. The army stands ready to intervene with water pumps, excavators, and other heavy-duty clearing equipment, as well as lighting equipment. Civil protection has also been mobilized,” Valais said in a later translated press release.