{"id":75245,"date":"2025-10-21T13:19:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T11:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/?post_type=magazin&p=75245"},"modified":"2026-09-26T08:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T06:39:07","slug":"blatten-landslide","status":"publish","type":"magazin","link":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/en\/magazine\/what-holds-us-together\/blatten-landslide\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blatten landslide: when permafrost makes the Alps unstable"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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\n\tWhat holds us together<\/a><\/div>\r\n

\r\n The Blatten landslide: when permafrost makes the Alps unstable <\/h2>\r\n\r\n
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When warming sets the rock sliding: how climate change is putting entire high-mountain communities at risk.
\nBy Emil Eichinger<\/a> (photos), Hagen Plasswich<\/a> (text)<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n

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The mountains are starting<\/strong> to crumble. For the people of the Swiss Alps, this is no longer an abstract threat but reality. When a glacier in the canton of Valais collapses on 28 May 2025 and, together with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rock, buries the village of Blatten, one thing becomes clear: for the Alps, the climate crisis is not the future but the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took only moments for Blatten to disappear almost completely. Days earlier, part of the nearby mountain had begun to crumble. The rock piled up on the glacier below. The pressure grew so great that the glacier broke away from the rock face. A huge mass of debris and ice crashed down into the valley.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The debris and ice<\/strong> cover the floor of the L\u00f6tschental valley over a length of around 2.5 kilometres, in places 100 metres deep. Around 90 per cent of Blatten is buried.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n \n <\/figure>\n\n\n\n \n\n

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Under the pressure<\/strong> of the rock masses, a large part of the Birch Glacier slides away on 28 May, sending around 10 million cubic metres of rock and ice crashing into the valley.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n \n <\/figure>\n\n <\/div> \n\n\n \n\n \n \n\n

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Rapha\u00ebl Mayoraz,<\/strong> head of the natural hazards service, answers journalists\u2019 questions after the press conference on 28 May 2025.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n \n <\/figure>\n\n <\/div> \n\n\n \n\n \n \n\n

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Immediately after the<\/strong> landslide, a helicopter takes off to assess the situation.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n \n <\/figure>\n\n <\/div> \n\n\n \n\n \n<\/div>\n\n\n

The 300 evacuated residents of the village in Switzerland\u2019s L\u00f6tschental valley had to watch as their home vanished in seconds. One of them is Zarick Berger.

\u2018Nature is much bigger than we are. We have to save ourselves from it,\u2019 Zarick says in his emergency accommodation. He had always been aware that the mountains could be his undoing. A filmmaker and photographer with a deep bond with nature, he has always experienced it as something immense that humans cannot control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The world that existed there<\/strong> can\u2019t be rebuilt. It\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n <\/blockquote>\n\n

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In Blatten, Zarick lost not only his house but most of his belongings. The sight of the destroyed village felt surreal to him, even though such scenarios were not unfamiliar from his work. He doesn\u2019t want to put a figure on the financial damage, but he is sure the insurance won\u2019t pay. Even if it did, the cost of a new house in the region has since multiplied. Far worse, he says, is the irretrievable loss of his film archive, his camera equipment and his collection of musical instruments.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Most of Blatten\u2019s residents have suffered a similar fate. They were evacuated in time, but a 64-year-old shepherd was buried under the rock. That there was only one death is thanks to scientific monitoring: the mountain had been watched for years, so people could be warned early. Even so, the people of Blatten lost almost everything \u2013 yet they refuse to give up hope for Blatten\u2019s future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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