A landslide last week nearly wiped out the Swiss village of Blatten. It shows that those who live among the world’s glacial mountain passes face greater dangers from a warming world. The landslide occurred May 28. It sent roughly 3 million cubic meters of ice and rock downhill. It fell from the Birch Glacier. The ice and rock buried 90% of the village. Almost all of Blatten's log houses and hotels were destroyed. Blatten is popular for tourists. All but one of the town's 300 residents had already left. They had been taken out of the town before the landslide. So too were the livestock. Geologists had warned the glacier was unstable. But a 64-year-old man was still missing on Sunday. Locals think he chose to stay behind. “Blatten has been wiped away. Erased, obliterated, destroyed, stamped into the ground,” Matthias Bellwald told The Guardian. “The memories preserved in countless books, photo albums, documentation – everything is gone.” Bellwald is Blatten's mayor. Scientists are careful not to link disasters like this directly to climate change. But its effects are clear, they say. Many blame the collapse on melting permafrost. It glues glaciers to mountains and keeps rocks in place. Permafrost thaws are causing other disasters around the world. Many have died as a result. Similar conditions caused the Kolka-Karmadon glacier in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains to collapse. That was in 2002. The landslide buried the downhill village of Nizhniy Karmadon. It killed 120 people. Two decades later, the collapse of the Marmolada glacier in Italy claimed the lives of 11 humans. Similar events have occurred in the Andes Mountains in South America and the Himalayas in Asia. “What you’re seeing is (happening) all over the world,” Jan Beutel told The Guardian. “For sure, there will be more.” Beutel is a computer engineer who monitors mountains for seismic events. Reflect: What do you think people should do when they know a natural disaster might happen in their area? Photo of Blatten glacier collapse from Wikimedia Commons.
