The small Swiss village of Blatten has been partially destroyed by fragments of a collapsed glacier.
Footage of the natural disaster shows the tiny mountain town, home to only 300 people, becoming engulfed in debris after a 1.5 million cubic metre glacier collapsed and hurtled into the Loetschental valley.
Aside from its picturesque, snowcapped surroundings, Blatten is known for being along the route to the Tour de Suisse, a multi-stage bike race often used by participants as a warm-up to the Tour de France.
On Wednesday, Matthias Bellwald, Blatten’s mayor, said “the unimaginable” had happened before promising that the village would make it through.
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Meanwhile, Stephane Ganzer, the head of security in the southern Valais region, said on the local TV channel Canal9, “What I can tell you at the moment is that about 90 per cent of the village is covered or destroyed, so it’s a major catastrophe that has happened here in Blatten,” adding that it wasn’t immediately clear whether anyone was injured, and that the army had been mobilized after earlier indications that the movement of the glacier was accelerating.
“There’s a risk that the situation could get worse,” he told Canal9.
Despite the scale of the disaster, no deaths have been reported. The village was evacuated on May 19 as experts had anticipated the collapse.
According to Reuters, an assessment of the rock movement on the mountainside led authorities to believe that an unprecedented volume was poised to tumble down the mountainside.
The loosening rock sat above the glacier and authorities warned that it could pull down the ice mass with it.
Local authorities have called in the Swiss army’s disaster relief unit, as well as search and rescue helicopters charged with assessing the scale of the damage. Members of the government are also on their way to the scene, according to the BBC.
Following the disaster, Bellwald, appearing to hold back tears, said, “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 Swiss government has already promised funding to ensure residents can return to their homes, or at the very least, remain in the area.
Drone footage showed a large section of the Birch glacier collapsing at about 3:30 p.m. local time, causing a bellowing roar as masses of debris and ice tumbled across the valley.
For years, glaciologists who monitor the thaw have warned that some alpine towns could be at risk from the collapse seen in Blatten, the BBC said.
Two years ago, people living in the village of Brienz in eastern Switzerland were evacuated because the mountainside above the town was at risk of imminent collapse. Its residents have not been allowed to return full time.
— With files from Reuters and The Associated Press
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