‘Catastrophic’: One missing after glacier collapse buries Swiss alpine village, Blatten

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‘Catastrophic’: One missing after glacier collapse buries Swiss alpine village, Blatten

A huge chunk of a glacier in the Swiss Alps has broken off causing a deluge of rock, mud, and ice to bury a mountain village.

A spokesperson for the local authorities, Matthias Ebener, has confirmed that one person is missing after the catastrophic event, on Wednesday afternoon local time, in the alpine town of Blatten.

“An unbelievable amount of material thundered down into the valley,” Mr Ebener said.

Footage shared on social media captured the dramatic moment when the glacier partially collapsed, creating a huge cloud that covered part of the mountain as debris came crashing down, destroying homes and buildings in the Loetschental valley.

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“What I can tell you at the moment is that about 90 per cent of the village is covered or destroyed,” Stephane Ganzer, the Head of Security in the southern Valais region, told Swiss media.

He warned that there is a “risk that the situation could get worse.”

Drone footage broadcast by Swiss national broadcaster SRF showed a vast plain of mud and soil completely covering part of the village of Blatten on Wednesday afternoon, the river running through it and the wooded sides of the surrounding valley.

The rubble of shattered wooden buildings could be seen on the flanks of the huge mass of earth in the drone footage.

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Before-and-after photos have also been posted on social media platform X, revealing the devastation in the small southern Swiss town.

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Roughly 300 residents were ordered to evacuate on May 19 after geologists identified a risk of an imminent avalanche of rock and ice from above.

Swiss authorities have been monitoring the slopes above Blatten since ordering residents to leave their homes.

– With AAP

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