Swiss residents in shock after glacier debris buries village

Residents struggled on Thursday to absorb the scale of devastation caused by a huge slab of glacier that buried most of their picturesque Swiss village, in what scientists suspect is a dramatic example of climate change's impact on the Alps.

A deluge of millions of cubic meters of ice, mud and rock crashed down a mountain on Wednesday, engulfing the village of Blatten. The few houses that remained were later flooded. Its 300 residents had already been evacuated earlier in May after part of the mountain behind the Birch Glacier began to crumble.

One 64-year-old man, believed to have been in the danger zone at the time, remains missing. A police spokesman said the difficult conditions forced the search to be called off on Thursday.

The unstable mountain face and thousands of tonnes of rocky debris also made it impossible for emergency workers to intervene to stabilize the area or contain the risk of flooding in the valley below, officials told a news conference.

The huge pile of glacier debris, stretching some two kilometers, has blocked the Lonza River.

After initially warning of a potentially devastating flood from water trapped above the debris, authorities said expert analysis now suggests the risk has eased.

"The information we've received from geologists and other specialists tends to indicate such an event is unlikely," Valais security chief Stephane Ganzer told a news conference.

An artificial dam in the village of Ferden, just below, has been emptied and should be able to contain any downward rush of water if it occurs, Ganzer said.

However, he added, "It's unlikely, but we don't really like that word 'unlikely' here since yesterday, because we know that unlikely can become likely."

Water levels have been rising by 80 centimeters an hour from the blocked river and melting glacier ice, according to Ganzer.

Werner Bellwald, a 65-year-old cultural studies expert, lost the wooden family house built in 1654 where he lived in Ried, a hamlet next to Blatten also wiped out by the deluge.

"You can't tell that there was ever a settlement there," he told Reuters. "Things happened there that no one here thought were possible."

The worst-case scenario would be a wave of debris bursting the nearby Ferden Dam, Ganzer said. He added that while the chances of such a mudslide are currently considered unlikely, the dam had been emptied as a precaution to serve as a buffer zone.

Local authorities said the buildings in Blatten that emerged intact from the landslide are now flooded, and some residents of nearby villages have also been evacuated.

The army said about 50 personnel, along with water pumps, diggers and other heavy equipment, are on standby to provide relief once conditions allow.

Authorities have begun airlifting livestock from the area, said Jonas Jeitziner, a local official in Wiler, as a few sheep scrambled out of a container lowered from a helicopter.

Asked how he felt about the future, he gazed toward the plain of mud and said, "Right now, the shock is so profound that one can't think about it yet."

The catastrophe has renewed concerns about the impact of rising temperatures on Alpine permafrost, where thawing has loosened rock structures and created new mountain hazards.

For years, the Birch Glacier has been creeping down the mountainside, pressured by shifting debris near the summit.

Matthias Huss, head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland, pointed to the likely role of climate change in loosening the rock mass within the permafrost, triggering the collapse.

"Unexpected things happen at places that we have not seen for hundreds of years, most probably due to climate change," he told Reuters.

(With input from agencies)