What Next for Blatten, Switzerland & the Alps After Glacier Landslide?
2nd June 2025
Last modified on June 5th, 2025
The village of 300 inhabitants was buried under an unprecedented landslide last week. The implications for the Lötschental Valley, Switzerland and the wider Alps are significant. UPDATED
An estimated 9 million cubic tons of ice, rock and mud buried the evacuated village last Wednesday.
A rockfall had been expected but no-one predicted the size of the landslide and the scale of the disaster.
In terms of the volume and the extent of the damage caused, the collapse of the Birch Glacier is unprecedented.
“I was speechless,” said Matthias Huss, a leading glacier specialist at Zurich’s Federal Institute of Technology to the BBC.
“It was the worst case that could happen.”
We reported on it at the time:
The collapse likely occurred due to permafrost thawing above, underneath and along the sidewalls surrounding the glacier, Mathieu Morlighem, a glaciologist at Dartmouth College, told ABC News.
Rocks from the mountainside above hit the weakened glacier and part of it collapsed.
Permafrost is the permanently frozen soil that is the ‘glue’ that keeps the mountain rock stable, but as temperatures warm, the permafrost melts and destabilises the mountain.
The melting of the permafrost may have significant consequences for ski resorts across the Alps where many structures are built into it.
From buildings to ski lifts.
Wengen, Switzerland. Image © PlanetSKI
“I think we can expect more events like this in the future,” added Morlighem.
“Climate change and its impact on the cryosphere will have growing repercussions on human societies that live near glaciers,” said Ali Neumann, disaster risk reduction advisor to the Swiss Development Cooperation.
“With the right skills and observation and management of an emergency, you can significantly reduce the magnitude of this type of disaster.”
He was speaking at an international UN-backed glacier conference in Tajikistan.
The World Meteorological Organisation is calling for more investment in monitoring glaciers.
Glacier-related risks are becoming a global concern, according to the Secretary-General of the WMO, Celeste Saulo, who was also at the conference in Tajikistan.
In response to accelerating climate change, the WMO is urging increased investment in glacier monitoring and forecasting.
Saulo highlighted the need for greater awareness and support for hydrometeorological centres worldwide.
“With better monitoring, we can expect to have better forecasts, with those we can expect to have better early warning systems in the end to protect societies, protect people and to protect livelihoods,” she said.
In Blatten the 592 year old village had been evacuated, though one person chose to stay and he is missing presumed dead.
The Swiss President, Karin Keller-Sutter, visited the disaster area last Friday.
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.”
Other areas in the Lötschental valley are being checked with some people leaving the area.
Several nearby communities remain on alert, and there are concerns for potential flooding.
Brienz, a village around 25 miles (41 km) north of Blatten, is also preparing for a possible evacuation.
The town has faced repeated warnings and near miss rock slides since 2023.
The implications are far wider though as the factors that’s led to the landslide are similar across other parts of the Swiss Alps and beyond.
The disaster has also had a profound impact on the national psyche in Switzerland as the mountains are part of Swiss society and are seen as a constant.
Not anymore.
“This is really an event that will be quite decisive for Switzerland, and how we perceive the mountains,” said Matthias Huss.
Scientists are now engaged to understand what happened and what can do done.
Switzerland is an early warning success story and the country uses a broad range of technologies and methods to assess the risks.
This includes terrain mapping and continuous monitoring of rainfall, permafrost melt, groundwater levels, tectonic shifts and ground movement.
This data is used to maintain hazard risk maps across the country.
“Every community in Switzerland that’s affected by a hazard has a hazard map. They’re federally mandated for the areas where people live,” said Brian McArdell, a geomorphologist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research.
While scientists are cautious about attributing single events to climate change, glaciologists have been concerned about the impact of climate change on glaciers in Switzerland in recent decades.
Mountain landslides are more common in a warming climate.
In addition, increased rainfall in a warming climate can melt permafrost and change the number of freeze-thaw cycles, which can also exacerbate landslides.
Authorities and researchers have been monitoring the glacier for years, there are clear indications that several rock avalanches and terrain movements on Kleines Nesthorn, the mountain above the glacier, were the primary cause of the glacier’s collapse.
“We know there were already several rock avalanches before the collapse on Wednesday and that rock debris accumulated on the glacier as a result,” says Professor Farinotti, who has been working with ETH and WSL researchers Matthias Huss and Mylène Jacquemart to compile a factsheet that summarises the current state of knowledge from the perspective of glacier research.
“Our aim is to use this data and our available knowledge to support the authorities, who are doing incredible work in extremely difficult circumstances to maintain an overview of the conditions and improve the situation for the people,” explains Professor Farinotti.
See here for a full analysis in an article on the Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, WSL.
Matthias Huss points out that while Blatten may be the biggest, most dramatic alpine disaster in recent years, it isn’t the only one.
“We are seeing many,” he said, “and lots of these events in the last years in the Alps are linked to global warming.
“There seems to be a link that’s quite clear because the warming is affecting permafrost thaw and the permafrost is what stabilises these high mountains.”
The glacier collapse above Blatten has some parallels to the rock avalanche at Piz Cengalo in 2017, when around three million cubic metres of rock fell onto a small glacier, causing it to be partly swept away and triggering a flow of debris.
This caused severe damage to infrastructure in the village of Bondo.
Eight people died in the incident.
On 2 September 2002, the Kolka–Karmadon glacier collapsed in the Russian Caucasus and 100 million cubic metres of ice travelling up to 19 kilometres down the valley.
The avalanche buried the village of Nizhniy Karmadon and claimed 125 lives.
There are calls for the village of Blatten to be re-built, but such decisions are a long way off.
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 said Mayor Bellwand.
The Lötschental valley without Blatten is unthinkable and vice versa.
It is a matter of rebuilding entire existences, Bellwald continued.
Three hotel businesses in Blatten have been wiped out.
Agriculture and the energy economy must also be rebuilt.
In the meantime the Blatten landslide has focused the attention of alpine communities and the authorities on what the future may mean in the mountains in a warming world.
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