A town in Switzerland has been engulfed after a catastrophic landslide unleashed a significant avalanche, overwhelming homes and compelling locals to flee.
A massive cloud of ice and debris surged towards the small village of Blatten, completely wiping it out.
Fortunately, the village of 300 residents were evacuated a week earlier after experts warned them of the impending danger.
The glacier collapse registered as an earthquake with a Richter scale measurement of 3.1.
Drone footage from Swiss broadcaster SRF showed the entire village covered by a vast plain of mud and soil, with a river running through it.
Emergency crews in the Wallis region revealed that a huge chunk of the Birch glacier broke off at around 3.30pm local time.
The Swiss government has dispatched the army to the scene after local authorities requested assistance.
Although no injuries or deaths have been reported, the residents of Blatten will not be able to return, as the entire village has been destroyed.
Matthias Bellwald, Blatten’s mayor, said: “The unimaginable has happened.
“We have lost our village, but not our heart.
“We will support each other and console each other.”
Blatten’s residents have been promised funding from the Swiss government to house them in the local area.
However, Raphaël Mayoraz, head of the regional Natural Hazards office, warned that more evacuations could be needed in towns near the Blatten area.
Experts had been closely monitoring the glacier’s movements, which intensified before triggering the massive avalanche.
“An extraordinary volume of debris roared down the valley,” remarked Matthias Ebener, a representative for the regional government in the southwestern canton of Valais.
Officials were mobilizing both by helicopter and on the ground to evaluate the destruction, Jonas Jeitziner, a representative for the Ltschental crisis center, shared with The Associated Press during a phone interview.
Swiss glaciologists have repeatedly expressed concerns about a thaw in recent years, attributed in large part to global warming, that has accelerated the retreat of glaciers in Switzerland.
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.
In 2023, residents of the village of Brienz, in eastern Switzerland, were evacuated before a huge mass of rock slid down a mountainside, stopping just short of the community.
Brienz was evacuated again last year because of the threat of a further rockslide.
It comes after a British man was killed after he was swept 50ft to his death in a horrific avalanche at the popular French ski resort Val Thorens.
And a skier who died in a massive avalanche in the French Alps had his body discovered thanks to his elbow still sticking out from the snow.
