Glacier gives upside down: BLATES partially spilled

The majority of a glacier above the Swiss village of Blatten broke off and has reached the evacuated settlement together with huge scree masses. According to the regional management staff, parts of the village were probably buried. It was the « major event that has been expected for days, » said a spokesman for the German press agency. According to the experts, people did not damage.

A photographer from the Swiss news agency Keystone-Sda reported gigantic rubble masses that rolled into the valley. Before that, larger quantities of ice, rock, snow and water had fallen down on Tuesday night.

Huge rubble masses

The trigger of these events in the southern canton of Valais is a relatively slow clash on the small Nesthorn, above the now crashed pirch glacier. By crumbling the small Nesthorn, around nine million tons of rubble materials store on the glacier and exert pressure on the ice masses, as Keystone-SDA reported.

Because of the danger situation, the village was Blaten in the Lötschental holiday region was cleared at short notice last week made. Around 300 inhabitants had to leave their houses.