The glacier collapse in Blatten was no ordinary natural disaster

The pictures are terrible to see. A huge brown -gray cloud rushes down the mountain side. When everything is over, the former idyllic village is Blatten, with a beautiful white church surrounded by old wooden houses, almost completely covered with clay and water.

Kamal Kishore, the UN’s special reporter for disaster prevention, expressed on Thursday what has happened.

« The loss of this peaceful village, in an area classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, is a loss for the whole world », he writes in a statement.

The disaster in Blatten is astonishing in several ways. It is a dramatic reminder of how extremely quickly the alps’ glaciers are disappearing right now. In Switzerland the glaciers have lost more than half of its volume between 1931 and 2021.

It also occurred with an eerie timing, as if it were a brutal comment on a German verdict earlier that day.

According to several experts, the glacier collapse in Switzerland was not a common natural disaster. The connection to climate change is clear. It’s not just about the glaciers melting away. The Alper’s Permafrost – permanently frozen soil that acts as « glue » for both glaciers and the mountain sides – also thaws very quickly. And it is the latter that became a death sentence for the glacier Birch above the blue. More than two million cubic meters of stones and debris is judged to have loosened From the mountain top and fallen over the glacier, which eventually made it collapse.

Fortunately, authorities and researchers had warned of what was about to happen. The village’s 300 inhabitants and livestock had been evacuated before the disaster took place – only one person is missing.

It puts your finger On another question: The importance of being prepared for the upcoming climate disasters.

However, warning systems mainly save human life (and in the case of Blatten Kossor, which is lifted by helicopter). However, infrastructure, people’s homes, jobs and in some cases their future can still be destroyed when the disasters strike.

And here the German case comes into the picture. Who should really pay the price when innocent people suffer from climate disasters? And who should pay for the protection that is needed?

For over ten years Has a Peruvian farmer, Luciano Lliuya, processed on that issue in Germany. He lives in Huarez in the Peruvian mountains, where the glaciers as well as in the Alps melt very quickly. It has caused a lake in the mountains above Huarez to grow strongly – now a natural dam is risking bursting, which can be flooded.

With the help of the Germanwatch organization, Luciano Lliuya has sued the German energy giant RWE, which according to the lawsuit caused around 0.5 percent of global emissions historically, on the company’s fair part of the cost of a flood protection.

On Wednesday, a German court rejected the lawsuit, as the flood risk against Luciano lliuya’s home was not considered large enough.

But at the same time, the court opened a legal door. Companies can be held financially responsible for the damage that people suffer as a consequence of the companies’ emissions, according to the judgment. The message was celebrated as a great victory by the climate activists.

It is yet Too early to see what consequences it will have. But one thing is certain: the world is in great need of increased protection against climate disasters. It costs money – and the requirements that those who have caused the crisis now pay the bill will become an increasing question in the future.

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