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Japan Times
02-06-2025
- Climate
- Japan Times
How Switzerland's Birch glacier collapsed
A cascade of events in the Swiss Alps led to the dramatic collapse of the Birch glacier, wiping out Blatten village in the valley below, glaciologists and geoscientists said on Friday. Experts knew days ahead of Wednesday's landslide that the glacier was likely to suffer a catastrophic failure. But the reasons why date back much further. There are strong theories on the causes, and to what degree the disaster is linked to climate change — but these are yet to be confirmed by scientific analysis. "This can be considered as a cascading event, because we have different processes involved," explained Christophe Lambiel, senior lecturer at the University of Lausanne's Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics. Mountain above the glacier The 3,342-meter Kleines Nesthorn mountain above the glacier was already somewhat unstable, and rockfalls accelerated dramatically around 10 days beforehand. Experts feared a total collapse within hours, but instead there were successive rockfalls over several days, which was actually the best-case scenario. Rockfall onto glacier Some 3 million cubic meters of rock were deposited on the glacier. "If you put a lot of weight on an unstable foundation, it can just slip away. And this is what actually happened," Matthias Huss, the director of Glacier Monitoring Switzerland (GLAMOS), said. "The glacier accelerated strongly in response to this additional loading, and then the disaster struck." The Birch glacier The Birch glacier was a special case: the only Swiss glacier that was advancing rather than shrinking. However, this was not because of extra snowfall. Its advance "was quite likely due to the pre-loading with rockfalls from this mountain, which has finally collapsed. So the landslide didn't start from nothing," said Huss. A helicopter removes pieces of wood obstructing the river Lonza after the Birch glacier collapsed and a massive landslide destroyed the village of Blatten, on Saturday. | AFP-JIJI The glacier was on a steep slope, and even steeper at the front, worsening the dynamics. Smaller-scale falls from the front of the glacier Tuesday were expected to continue, with Wednesday's sudden total collapse considered a less-probable scenario. How the glacier collapsed The rockfalls altered the stress equation between the weight of the glacier and the slope, which governs its forward speed, Lambiel said. Like pushing a car, it takes a lot of force to initiate movement, but less once it is on the move, he explained. Huss said the 1,000 meters of elevation between the glacier and the Lotschental valley floor added a "huge amount of potential energy," which through friction melts part of the ice, making the fall "much more dynamic than if it was just rock." Role of melting permafrost Permafrost conditions are degrading throughout the Alps. Ice inside the cracks in the rocks has been thawing to ever-deeper levels over the last decade, especially after the summer 2022 heat wave. "Ice is considered as the cement of the mountains. Decreasing the quality of the cement decreases the stability of the mountain," said Lambiel. Huss added, "At the moment, we can't say it's because of permafrost thaw that this mountain collapsed — but it is at least a very probable explanation, or one factor, that has triggered or accelerated this process of the mountain falling apart." Role of climate change Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the Lotschental valley floor, said, "There is no clear evidence as of yet, for this specific case, that this was caused by climate change." Huss said making such a direct link was "complicated." "If it was just because of climate change that this mountain collapsed, all mountains in the Alps could collapse — and they don't," he said. "It's a combination of the long-term changes in the geology of the mountain. "The failing of the glacier as such — this is not related to climate change. It's more the permafrost processes, which are very complex, long-term changes." Lambiel said of a link between climate change and the glacier moving forward over time, "Honestly, we don't know. "But the increasing rockfalls on the glacier during the last 10 years — this can be linked with climate change." Other glaciers Modern monitoring techniques detect acceleration in the ice with high precision — and therefore allow for early warning. Lambiel said around 80 glaciers in the same region of Switzerland were considered dangerous, and under monitoring. "The big challenge is to recognise where to direct the detailed monitoring," said Huss. Lambiel said sites with glacier-permafrost interactions above 3,000 meters would now need more research. But they are difficult to reach and monitor. Steiner said, "Probably the rapidly changing permafrost can play some kind of role. "This is concerning because this means that mountains are becoming a lot more unstable."
Metro
28-05-2025
- Science
- Metro
Major warning issued for tourist hotspot after glacier collapse
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video A huge mass of rock and ice has destroyed part of a popular village in the Swiss Alps that was evacuated earlier this month. A video on social media showed the rumbling mudslide near Blatten, in the southern Lotschental valley of Switzerland, with several cabins partially submerged. In recent days, the authorities had ordered the evacuation of about 300 people, as well as all livestock from the village, amid fears that a 1.5 million cubic metre glacier above the village was at risk of collapse. Local authorities were deploying across the area to assess the damage and whether there had been any casualties, Jonas Jeitziner, a spokesman for the Lotschental crisis centre, said. The retreat of the Alps' glaciers has been well documented. More than 500 glaciers have already vanished from Switzerland, and the government has warned that the remaining 1,500 will be gone by the end of the century if emissions are not curbed. It has led to so-called 'last chance' tourism, where visitors flock to see such natural wonders while they still can. Yes, there has always been natural variation in the size of these frozen rivers. But Switzerland's glaciers suffered their second-worst melt rate in 2023 after record 2022 losses, shrinking their overall volume by 10% in the last two years, monitoring body GLAMOS said last September. The 'catastrophic' figures meant they lost as much ice in two years as in the three decades before 1990. Late last year, scientists warned that a glacier known as 'the doomsday glacier', which has the potential to cause sea levels to rise across the planet, could be on the verge of collapse. Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) used underwater robots to take new measurements of the Thwaites Glacier, which is the same size as Great Britain or Florida. More Trending The data suggestsed that the glacier, along with much of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, could be lost entirely by the 23rd century. Worryingly, if it collapses entirely, the experts say global sea levels would rise by two feet (65cm), plunging huge areas underwater. In 2023, residents of the village of Brienz, in eastern Switzerland, were evacuated before a huge mass of rock slid down a mountainside, stopping just short of the settlement. Brienz was evacuated again last year because of the threat of a further rockslide. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Who is hosting Eurovision 2025? Everything you need to know about Michelle Hunziker MORE: I've watched Eurovision for 45 years — here's my party survival guide MORE: Eurovision star wants to break 30 year 'curse' that's doomed other singers
