Blatten Avalanche: A Catastrophic Event Without Historical Precedent in the Swiss Alps
- Post by: Randy Muñoz
- June 12, 2025
- Comments off
On the afternoon of 28 May 2025, a massive ice-rock-debris avalanche from Birch Glacier and Kleines Nesthorn struck the village of Blatten (Lötschental, Switzerland), destroying large parts of the settlement. EClim’s Christian Huggel provides key insights into the scale and causes of this unprecedented event.
📌 Key facts and context:
- Estimated 10 million m³ of mass collapsed—similar in volume to the 2024 Piz Scerscen avalanche, but this time hitting a populated area.
- Blatten’s historic center and surrounding areas were devastated. The village (~300 inhabitants) has suffered destruction unseen in the Swiss Alps for over a century.
- The event resulted from a complex interaction of high-mountain processes: permafrost degradation, glacier loading, and sudden structural failure.
- The rapid emergency response helped avoid large-scale loss of life, though one person remains missing.
📌 Wider implications:
- Such a large, populated-area impact from an ice-rock avalanche has no known precedent in 20th- or 21st-century Alpine history.
- Similar events have been studied in the Himalayas and Alaska, but this is a new reality for the European Alps.
- The Lonza River is now dammed, potentially accumulating up to 1 million m³ of water per day, creating additional downstream risks.
This disaster calls for renewed urgency in risk monitoring, climate-informed hazard assessment, and community preparedness in vulnerable mountain regions.
📄 Media reports:
Categories: Events