Swiss Glacier Collapse Engulfs Alpine Village in Rock and Ice

(Bloomberg) — A Swiss glacier has collapsed, destroying most of the Alpine village of Blatten in a wave of rock and ice.

Live footage on Wednesday shows 3 million cubic meters of rock and mud burying Blatten and the nearby Lonza river. That’s potentially increasing threats should the flow of water be blocked, according to the cantonal government in Valais.

“The worst-case scenario has become a reality,” Raphaël Mayoraz, head of the natural dangers service for Valais, told reporters on Wednesday “It’s an extremely rare phenomenon.”

About 300 people were evacuated from the village in the southern Loetschental valley 10 days ago as the risk of a rupture to the Birch glacier mounted. The army has been deployed to help with recovery efforts, with one person missing, according to Associated Press.

Scientists have long warned that a warming planet is making such events more likely. The Alps have warmed about 2C since the pre-industrial period, with many glaciers losing half their mass since 1900. Three years ago, 11 people were killed after a glacial ice shelf collapsed in the Dolomites in Italy following record-high temperatures.

Swiss researchers have explicitly sounded the alarm over the rate of thaw, which appears to be accelerating.

The world is currently on track to overshoot the critical warming threshold of 1.5C, with some estimates pointing to an average temperature rise of twice that by the end of the century. Exceeding 1.5C of warming will have irreversible consequences for glacier mass, scientists warned in a recent study, underscoring the need to slash greenhouse has emissions.

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