Swiss Village Destroyed by Landslide as Glacier Collapses
29th May 2025
Last modified on May 31st, 2025
The Swiss President has visited village of Blatten that was buried after a huge chunk of glacier broke off and crashed down into the valley triggering a massive landslide. There are calls for the village to be re-built. UPDATED
The Swiss President, Karin Keller-Sutter, visited the disaster area on Friday afternoon.
After a helicopter flight over the the village she promised aid and support.
“The force with which the mountain here wiped out an entire village is indescribable,” she said.
“I’d like to tell you all that you’re not alone. The whole of Switzerland is with you, and not just people in Switzerland.
“You only realise it when you see it with your own eyes.”
Keller-Sutter, who holds the rotating Swiss presidency traveled to the Lötschental valley in Canton Valais to get a firsthand account of the situation.
She also praised the local authorities for their foresight and the people of Lötschental for their mutual help.
The federal government will provide the support promised by her colleagues in the federal government Martin Pfister and Albert Rösti.
A new Blatten is needed said the village’s mayor, Matthias Bellwald.
To this end, a “New Blatten Working Group” will be established “as soon as possible.”
All four valley communities will be represented in it.
Although the focus is on Blatten, the entire valley is affected by the current situation, Bellwald continued. The Lötschental valley without Blatten is unthinkable and vice versa.
It is a matter of rebuilding entire existences, Bellwald continued. For example, three hotel businesses in Blatten have been wiped out.
Agriculture and the energy economy must also be rebuilt.
On Wednesday a 10m ton avalanche of ice, mud and rocks buried 90% of the village of Blatten and now some of the parts that survived are now being flooded.
The slide cut off the River Lonza that flows through the village and it is now forming a large lake, submerging some of the houses that survived.
There are also fears of further rockfalls above Blatten and in other parts of the Lötschental valley.
The majority of the village lies buried 50m to 200m under rubble.
Not even the church is visible, with just a few roofs can be seen at the edge of the village.
The people of Blatten have lost everything.
“Their homes, their souvenirs, their church, their cemetery,” said the Valais politician, Christophe Darbellay.
The canton of Valais has declared a “special situation” and mobilized the Swiss army’s disaster relief unit to help clear debris and secure the riverbed.
Many of Blatten’s 300 residents may never be able to return to their homes.
The local mayor, Matthias Bellwald, said “the unimaginable has happened” but promised the village still had a future.
“We have lost our village, but not our heart.
“We will support each other and console each other.
“After a long night, it will be morning again.”
The village was evacuated earlier this month as we reported at the time:
Part of the Birch glacier broke off and it triggered the devastating landslide.
Drone footage shows a large section of the Birch glacier collapsing on Wednesday afternoon and burying the village.
A 64-year old man has been reported missing, and many homes have been completely destroyed.
The search for him has been called off as the rubble is deemed to be unsafe.
The Federal government has promised aid and financial support.
The Swiss President, Karin Keller-Sutter, has reacted.
“It’s terrible to lose your home,” Keller-Sutter said on X.
The head of the regional office for Natural Hazards, Raphaël Mayoraz, warned that further evacuations in the areas might be necessary.
Climate change has played a part as the mountains warm up and glaciers melt.
We have reported on it in this related PlanetSKI article:
Marmolada ice collapse. Image c/o Alpine rescue services.
The permafrost, often described as the glue that holds high mountains together, is also thawing.
The collapse likely occurred as a result of permafrost thawing underneath and along the sidewalls surrounding the glacier, Mathieu Morlighem, a glaciologist at Dartmouth College, told ABC News.
“I think we can expect more events like this in the future,” Morlighem added.
Glaciologists monitoring the melting of glacier and the alpine thaw have warned for years that some alpine towns and villages will be at increasing risk.
The most recent report into the condition of Switzerland’s glaciers suggested they could all be gone within a century, if global temperatures could not be kept within a rise of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
This was agreed ten years ago by almost 200 countries under the Paris climate accord.
Many climate scientists suggest that target has already been missed.
That means the glacier thaw will likely continue and will threaten more communities in the Alps like Blatten.
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