'I lost everything': Residents in shock after landslide buries Swiss village

Residents person told of their devastation aft a landslide destroyed the immense bulk of a colony successful Switzerland.

Around 90% of the picturesque colony of Blatten was engulfed successful ice, mud and stone connected Wednesday aft a ample chunk of the Birch Glacier supra the colony broke off, causing the landslide.

Its 300 residents had already been evacuated aft portion of the upland down the glacier began to crumble.

Rescue teams and hunt dogs continued to scour the country connected Thursday for a missing 64-year-old antheral aft an archetypal drone scan recovered nothing.

As radical effort to recover, experts besides warned of the risks of flooding, with immense mounds of debris, astir 2km across, blocking the River Lonza, causing a immense water to swell.

"I don't privation to speech conscionable now. I mislaid everything yesterday. I anticipation you understand," said 1 middle-aged pistillate from Blatten, arsenic she sat unsocial successful beforehand of a religion successful the neighbouring colony of Wiler.

A adjacent road, which erstwhile crossed the valley, present ends abruptly successful a wide of mud that had swallowed her village.

Martin Henzen, different Blatten resident, said helium was inactive struggling to process what happened.

"Most are calm, but they're evidently affected," helium said.

While preparations had been made, it was "not for this scenario", Mr Henzen said, referring to the standard of destruction.

'Enormous plug'

Residents are not retired of the woods yet, with immoderate informing of the information posed by the blocked river.

"The h2o from the River Lonza cannot travel down the vale due to the fact that determination is an tremendous plug," Raphael Mayoraz, a geologist, told Swiss broadcaster SRF, saying floods successful downstream villages were possible.

Up to 1 cardinal cubic metres of h2o are accumulating regular owed to the debris damming the river, Christian Huggel, a prof of situation and clime astatine the University of Zurich, said.

Asked however helium felt astir the future, Jonas Jeitziner, a section authoritative from neighbouring Wiler, said: "Right now, the daze is truthful profound that 1 can't deliberation astir it yet."

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The incidental has reignited concerns astir the interaction of rising temperatures connected Alpine permafrost, which has agelong frozen gravel and boulders successful place.

For years, the Birch Glacier has been creeping down the mountain, pressured by shifting debris adjacent the summit.