Partial ice collapse causes the landslide that is burying 90 % of the Swiss village

Geneva A 64 -year -old man remained missing on Thursday after a large mass of rocks and ice were shattered from one of the iceberg on the side of the Swiss mountain the day before.

Earth collapsing sent columns of dust in the sky and wrapped with mud almost all of the Alps Mountain Village that the authorities had evacuated earlier this month as a preventive measure. State Adviser Stephen Ganzer Radio Telepchyan Swiss told 90 % of the village destroyed.

“The incredible quantity of materials would like to the valley,” Reuters news agency quoted Metsias Ebner, a spokesman for the local authorities.

“We have lost our village,” Mayor of Blatin Matthias Bellwald told a news conference. “The village is under the rubble. We will rebuild.”

Valis Canton Police said that the search and rescue was running for the missing man, whose name was not public, and that it involves a drone with a thermal camera.

The regional government said in a statement that a large part of the ice rivers over the village had separated, causing the landslide, which also buried the bed of the near Lonza river, which sparked the possibility of integrated water flows.

A video on Swiss social media and television showed that the clay collapse near Blatten, in the southern Lucintertel Valley, is partially immersed and other buildings under a mass of brown sludge.

In recent days, the authorities have ordered the evacuation of about 300 people, as well as all livestock, from the village amid fears that the ice river, which is 52 million feet, is at risk of collapse.

Swiss ice scientists have repeatedly expressed their concerns about the melting of the ice in recent years – attributed to a large part of it. Global warming – Which accelerated the decline in ice rivers in Switzerland.

The country of non -coastal alpine includes most of the ice rivers in any country in Europe, and 4 % of its total ice size saw disappear in 2023. This was the second largest decrease in one year after a 6 % decrease in 2022.