Moment Avalanche Buries Swiss Village

One person is missing and 90 per cent of a village has been destroyed after a chunk of a glacier came crashing into a Swiss valley.

READ MORE: https://www.thetimes.com/article/5f52f4a6-fdc7-4ce5-b10c-9c9b38db79c3

Dramatic drone video taken by the Swiss national broadcaster SRF showed an avalanche of ice, mud and rock completely covering part of the southwestern village of Blatten, the river running through it and the wooded sides of the surrounding Loetschental valley.

Officials said one person was missing, despite the village’s 300 residents and livestock having been evacuated some days ago. Emergency services had urged people to stay away from the area that they warned was hazardous.

“The unimaginable has happened,” Matthias Bellwald, the mayor of Blatten, told a press conference after the slide. Appearing to fight back tears, he said: “We’ve lost our village. The village is under rubble. We will rebuild.”

Stephane Ganzer, an official in the canton of Valais where Blatten is located, told Swiss media that the slide “at first glance covered 90 per cent of the village”.

“There’s a risk that the situation could get worse,” Ganzer told Canal9, citing a nearby river that may be blocked.

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Видео Moment Avalanche Buries Swiss Village канала Times News