Residents have told of their devastation after a landslide destroyed the vast majority of a village in Switzerland.
Around 90% of the picturesque village of Blatten was engulfed in ice, mud and rock on Wednesday after a large chunk of the Birch Glacier above the village broke off, causing the landslide.
Its 300 residents had already been evacuated after part of the mountain behind the glacier began to crumble.
Rescue teams and search dogs continued to scour the area on Thursday for a missing 64-year-old man after an initial drone scan found nothing.
As people try to recover, experts also warned of the risks of flooding, with vast mounds of debris, almost 2km across, blocking the River Lonza, causing a huge lake to swell.
“I don’t want to talk just now. I lost everything yesterday. I hope you understand,” said one middle-aged woman from Blatten, as she sat alone in front of a church in the neighbouring village of Wiler.
A nearby road, which once crossed the valley, now ends abruptly in a mass of mud that had swallowed her village.
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Martin Henzen, another Blatten resident, said he was still struggling to process what happened.
“Most are calm, but they’re obviously affected,” he said.
While preparations had been made, it was “not for this scenario”, Mr Henzen said, referring to the scale of destruction.
‘Enormous plug’
Residents are not out of the woods yet, with some warning of the danger posed by the blocked river.
“The water from the River Lonza cannot flow down the valley because there is an enormous plug,” Raphael Mayoraz, a geologist, told Swiss broadcaster SRF, saying floods in downstream villages were possible.
Up to one million cubic metres of water are accumulating daily due to the debris damming the river, Christian Huggel, a professor of environment and climate at the University of Zurich, said.
Asked how he felt about the future, Jonas Jeitziner, a local official from neighbouring Wiler, said: “Right now, the shock is so profound that one can’t think about it yet.”
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The incident has reignited concerns about the impact of rising temperatures on Alpine permafrost, which has long frozen gravel and boulders in place.
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For years, the Birch Glacier has been creeping down the mountain, pressured by shifting debris near the summit.
