Blatten: ‘We lost everything, but not the joy of making music’

The Fafleralp Blatten music society now holds its rehearsals in a small hall at the Kippel school complex. SWI swissinfo.ch / Céline Stegmüller

A year after the devastating landslide that flattened most of the village of Blatten in the Swiss Alps, local associations have become the glue holding a scattered community together. The Fafleralp Blatten music society embodies the villagers’ determination to keep ties alive, to regain a semblance of normality and to look to the future with optimism.

“The landslide has not taken away our joy in making music,” says Nicole Kalbermatten, who has been the president of the Fafleralp Blatten music society for the past seven years. We meet her in the village of Kippel, some five kilometres down the valley from the destroyed village of Blatten in the Lötschental. It is a Wednesday evening just before band practice. The musicians are trickling in, taking their instruments from their cases and starting to tune them. 

At first, it looks like an ordinary band practice, but one thing seems odd. The walls display only the insignia and awards of the Alpenrose Kippel music society. There is nothing to suggest that the Fafleralp Blatten music societyExternal link meets here. “We lost almost everything in the landslide: our sheet music, uniforms, instruments, flag, archives,” Kalbermatten says.

A continued feeling of void

One year on, memories of the landslide recur more frequently, and with them feelings of deep sadness. “It’s a well-known fact that, in the grieving process, something shifts after 12 months. Now that the snow is melting, I can see again the heap of debris and rocks that my house is buried under. Right now, I’d be tidying the garden,” Kalbermatten says. “But it’s all gone. All that is left is an unbearable void. My heart aches whenever I look up the valley.”

Blatten: from disaster to rebirth

On May 28, 2025, the village of Blatten, in southwestern Switzerland’s Lötschental valley, was destroyed by a huge landslide caused by the collapse of the Birch Glacier. The mass of nine million cubic metres of debris buried 90% of the village, damming the River Lonza and creating an artificial lake.

Two weeks after the disaster, it was announced at a public meeting that the village would be rebuilt over the next three to five years. The estimated cost is at least CHF500 millionExternal link. The disaster sparked a surge of solidarity across Switzerland: CHF68 million has been raised to date.

In late April, work began on the construction of a new cantonal road connecting the lower valley with the villages of the upper Lötschental. It is scheduled to open at the end of 2029. In the meantime, a temporary cable car is being built, which is due to come into service in mid-December 2026.

The day tragedy struck, May 28, 2025, it was dark and rainy. Kalbermatten was at work. She watched the movement of the glacier via livestream on her office computer screen.

Suddenly, a large section of the glacier broke off. A huge cloud of dust billowed up and the power went out. “The screen went black, just like my heart,” she says. A colleague, who was following everything on his phone, exclaimed: “Now it’s all coming down!” At that moment she realised that Blatten had gone. She stood rooted to the spot, unable to muster the courage to go outside, and her eyes filled with tears. Those who had stayed in the office fell into each other’s arms.

Music as therapy

“In the immediate aftermath, band practice was obviously not a priority. We had to be there for our loved ones and support them,” Kalbermatten says. Soon, however, it became clear that there was a need – especially among the younger and older members of the community – to get together.

“My father told me he needed to do something, to take his mind off things. He couldn’t just sit around thinking about what had happened,” she says.

Band practice could help people to get through the tragedy, to pick up the pieces of their daily lives. On June 27, almost a month after the landslide, an extraordinary meeting was held. “The committee wanted to understand whether people needed a break, or whether they wanted to keep going,” Kalbermatten explains. “Everyone wanted to keep going, so we also decided to take part in the Swiss Federal Music Festival in Biel/Bienne in 2026.”

The committee rolled up its sleeves and set to work. A plan was drawn up to recover what had been lost. A new logo was designed as a symbol of rebirth. Instruments also had to be found, as most of them had been buried under the debris. Lastly, a venue for rehearsals was needed. Here, the music societies of the nearby villages of Kippel and Ferden stepped in. A committee was also set up to create a new flag, an object of great symbolic value.

“The flag represents everything: a sense of belonging and cohesion, and it shows the way forward,” says Jakob Murmann. In his 20 years as flag-bearer for the band, he has experienced countless wonderful moments, but also many sad ones. The most dramatic was undoubtedly when the mountain turned Blatten into a graveyard of houses.

The glue holding Blatten together

Murmann is one of the few whose house in still standing. “I could go back to Blatten, but my wife and I would be completely alone there, with no friends or relatives, and nothing but a pile of debris in front of our eyes,” he says. He now lives in Kippel.

Today, the community of Blatten is scattered across the various villages of the valley or elsewhere in canton Valais; what holds it together are the events organised by the associations – like the concert given by the Fafleralp Blatten music society in Kippel church on the last Sunday of July 2025.

“It was such a moving moment,” Kalbermatten recalls. “Everyone was there and complete silence reigned in the audience. But we weren’t playing a requiem – we were celebrating rebirth.” For Murmann, moments such as these “give us courage and hope”.

The Fafleralp Blatten Music Society at the Federal Music Festival in Biel/Bienne. Nicole Kalbermatten

The associations have thus become the glue that binds the people of Blatten together. According to Kalbermatten, the band – like the church choir and the youth group – are the lifeblood of a village that no longer exists. “What will become of us if we fall apart?” she asks. “We must remain united to prevent the landslide from dividing us. If not, everyone will go their separate ways and the community will scatter.”

The greatest fear, Kalbermatten and Murmann say, is that, once rebuilt, Blatten will become nothing more than a collection of holiday homes, without a soul or real sense of community.

In this respect, the band’s flag can play an important role, giving people something to rally round. A visibly moved Murmann received the new one in early May. He then marched with it at the head of the band at the Federal Music Festival in Biel/Bienne, held from May 14-17.

“All of Switzerland was watching us. Everyone knows what happened to us, what we’re going through,” say Murmann and Kalbermatten. “For us it was a chance to say thank you for the tremendous support we’ve received. And to show that we’re still here, that in spite of everything, westill exist as a community, that the landslide hasn’t divided us.” 

The Fafleralp Blatten music society plays ‘Blue Jacket’ at the Federal Music Festival in Biel/Bienne:

Blatten: a band reborn in five stages

After the May 2025 landslide, which destroyed much of the equipment belonging to Fafleralp Blatten music society, recovery work began in the weeks that followed. The value of the losses – instruments, uniforms, flag and archives – is estimated at around CHF400,000 ($508,000).

June 2025: the committee drew up a recovery plan and convened an extraordinary general meeting. The members decided unanimously to continue the society’s activities and adopted a new logo to symbolise the new start.

Summer 2025: instruments for temporary use were obtained with the support of other music societies and private individuals. During the clean-up work in Blatten, some instruments were recovered from the debris and repaired.

From July 2025: the band found temporary rehearsal venues on the premises of the music societies of the nearby villages of Kippel and Ferden. Work also began on designing a new flag.

Autumn 2025: thanks to donations, the society was able to purchase new instruments and percussion equipment worth around CHF50,000. A committee was set up to organise new uniforms.

May 2026: the new flag was officially presented at the Federal Music Festival in Biel/Bienne. This was the band’s first major public appearance since the tragedy.

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Edited by Zeno Zoccatelli and Samuel Jaberg. Adapted from Italian by Julia Bassam/ts