In Switzerland, a glacier collapse destroys a village • FRANCE 24 English

The power of nature on full display, though so too was human ingenuity. The village had been evacuated days ago with experts sounding warnings that the glacia was unstable. Even the cows were taken. Though preparing for the worst is different to having it actually happen. Dear people of the unimaginable has happened today. We have practically lost the village. I am glad that we could evacuate everyone and bring them to safety. This gives us strength for what lies ahead. We have lost the village, but not the heart. Swiss glacias melted as much in 2022 and 2023 as between 1960 and 1990. I just drove up in my car. Then I heard a loud bang. That’s what I heard for a while. Afterwards, there was a lot of dust. That was the only thing you experienced here. No, no relief. But it’s all come down now. The glass here and everything has very probably come down. Let’s see how it goes on. That’s obviously very tragic for all the people here. The 300 people that lived there may never return. Though the mayor sounds defiant, we’re going back to this village and we’re doing everything we can to guarantee security with all the technical means at our disposal. It’s not the first Swiss village to be evacuated. Two years ago, people had to leave Breen and haven’t been able to return. A warmer climate is causing the glacias to melt faster, endangering settlements below, which means scenes like Wednesday may become more frequent throughout the region.

A huge mass of rock and ice from a glacier thundered down a Swiss Alpine mountainside on Wednesday, sending plumes of dust skyward and coating with mud nearly all of village in the valley below that authorities had evacuated earlier this month as a precaution.
#glacier #Switzerland #village

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20 comments
  1. The climate isn't warmer, it's shifting. The antarctic ice shelf grew by an estimated 100 million tons this year. Shifting, literally.

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