{"id":7846,"date":"2025-05-29T10:12:43","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T10:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/29\/partial-glacier-collapse-causes-landslide-that-buries-90-of-swiss-village\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T10:12:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T10:12:44","slug":"partial-glacier-collapse-causes-landslide-that-buries-90-of-swiss-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/29\/partial-glacier-collapse-causes-landslide-that-buries-90-of-swiss-village\/","title":{"rendered":"Partial glacier collapse causes landslide that buries 90% of Swiss village"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Geneva<\/em> \u2014 A 64-year-old man remained missing Thursday after a huge mass of rock and ice from a glacier crashed down a Swiss mountainside the day before. <\/p>\n

The landslide sent plumes of dust skyward and coated with mud nearly all of an Alpine village that authorities had evacuated earlier this month as a precaution. State Councilor St\u00e9phane Ganzer told Radio T\u00e9l\u00e9vision Suisse that 90% of the village was destroyed.<\/p>\n

“An unbelievable amount of material thundered down into the valley,” the Reuters news agency quotes Matthias Ebener, a spokesperson for local authorities as saying.<\/p>\n

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Mud and rocks slide down a mountain after a glacier partially collapsed, covering most of the village of Blatten, Switzerland on May 28, 2025, in this screen grab taken from a handout video.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Pomona Media \/ Handout via Reuters<\/p>\n

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“We’ve lost our village,” Blatten Mayor Matthias Bellwald told a press conference, according to Reuters. “The village is under rubble. We will rebuild.”<\/p>\n

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Mud and rocks cover a village after a glacier collapse onto Blatten, Switzerland, on May 28, 2025, in this screen grab taken from a video.<\/span><\/p>\n

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KEYSTONE-SDA via REUTERS<\/p>\n

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The Cantonal Police of Valais said that a search and rescue operation was underway for the missing man, whose name wasn’t made public, and that it involved a drone with a thermal camera.<\/p>\n

The regional government said in a statement that a large chunk of the Birch Glacier above the village had broken off, causing the landslide, which also buried the nearby Lonza River bed, raising the possibility of dammed water flows. <\/p>\n

Video on social media and Swiss television showed that the mudslide near Blatten, in the southern L\u00f6tschental valley, partially submerged homes and other buildings under a mass of brownish sludge. <\/p>\n

In recent days, authorities had ordered the evacuation of about 300 people, as well as all livestock, from the village amid fears that the 52 million-cubic foot glacier was at risk of collapse. <\/p>\n

Swiss glaciologists have repeatedly expressed concerns about a thaw in recent years – attributed in large part to global warming<\/a><\/span> – that has accelerated the retreat of glaciers in Switzerland. <\/p>\n

The landlocked Alpine country has the most glaciers of any country in Europe, and saw 4% of its total glacier volume disappear in 2023. That was the second-biggest decline in a single year after a 6% drop in 2022.<\/p>\n

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