What makes glaciers collapse like the event that buried a Swiss village?
Climate change and the defrosting of permafrost play a role in the destabilization of glaciers
The small village of Blatten in the Swiss Alps was largely destroyed by a landslide that occurred following the partial collapse of the birch glacier on May 28, 2025.
Alexandre Agrusti / AFP via Getty Images
An unstable glacier in the Swiss Alps collapsed this week, sending a deluge of rock, ice and mud through the valley below and buried the village of Blastten almost entirely. The scientists had warned of the possibility of a dangerous event linked to the glacier, and the residents of the village had been evacuated a few days earlier – but the almost total rupture of the glacier was a surprise. A person is missing. Government representatives initially estimated that the debris deposit was several dozen meters thick and about two kilometers long. To make things worse, the collapse of the glacier, called the birch glacier, blocked the flow of the Lonza river, which crosses the valley. Consequently, a newly created lake upstream of the debris field has flooded an area which has now overwhelmed in the deposit area, which could cause a flow of debris downstream. Friday afternoon, the local time, the managers pointed out that the water flow approached the top of the scree cone, which is the accumulation of loose and rocky debris.
Why did the glacier separated?
The collapse of the glacier and the subsequent landslide – which was so intense that it corresponded to an earthquake of magnitude 3.1 captured by the Swiss seismological service – was born from a series of rock falls that have occurred above the glacier in recent weeks. The rocks, dislodged due to the melting of high altitude snow, have exerted significant pressure on the relatively small glacier, according to officials. Experts examine longer -term factors that may have weakened the stability of the glacier even before these rockfalls. Christophe Lambiel, a glaciologist specializing in the geology of the high mountain at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, said on Swiss television RTS that Rockfalls were linked to climate change. “The increase in the fall in rocks is due to the merger perma, which increases instability,” said Lambiel, as reported by NPR.
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How would climate change lead to the collapse of a glacier?
New research published Thursday in Science notes that, within the framework of current climatic policies, more than three -quarters of the Ice mass of the world could disappear by the end of this century. In this scenario, almost all the small relatively low elevation glaciers, like that of Switzerland, would be destroyed. In an article of 2024 for American scientistJournalist Alec Luhn explained that “the deterioration of ice and snow triggers feedback loops that will still heat the world. Décongélage of permafrost is not only dangerous because it creates instability, as in the case of the birch glacier. As Luhn wrote, “research has revealed that the permafrost area now released more carbon than it absorbs, heating the planet more.”
Who is at risk of the disintegration of glaciers?
It is clear that the weakening of the Birch glacier in Switzerland was at least partially caused by the fall of rock. There are other ways whose changes to glaciers cause risks – and occasional devastation – to people, communities and infrastructure. As explained by an article of 2023 E & E News, “at least 15 million people worldwide live in the journeys of dangerous glacial lakes which can suddenly burst their banks and rush on the mountain sides.” These so -called light lake lighting floods can be fatal and cause catastrophic damage. “The deterioration of the planet’s snow and ice regions,” Luhn wrote in his 2024 article, “costs billions of dollars in the world”, according to a 2024 State of the Cryosphere report
What can we do to preserve glaciers and protect communities?
Giant plastic covers, snow pistols and painted rocks are all potential strategies to slow ice into the mountain regions of the world. The sound that glaciers emit when the water crosses their frozen cracks can be used to predict the lighting flood floods – and therefore to save lives. There is also an increasing feeling of calculation with the fate of the glaciers of the world. A test on the world list of victims of glaciers, which documents the glaciers that have melted or are in critical danger Science. In this document, anthropologists of the University Rice Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer write: “The first funeral in the world for a glacier took place in Iceland in 2019 for a small glacier called” OK … “Since then, the commemorative monuments for missing glaciers have increased around the world, illustrating the full link between the loss in the natural world and the human rituals. »»
