twenty seventh June 2025
On Could twenty eighth 9m cubic tons of rock, mud & ice got here crashing down on the evacuated Swiss village and buried it. There at the moment are plans to re-build & create a ‘New Blatten’. NEW
There have been a number of rock falls within the Alps lately because the temperatures rise, however the burial of Blatten was totally different on the finish of final month.
4 weeks on the results are nonetheless sinking in and plans are being laid for the longer term.
The rockfall had been anticipated, however no-one predicted the scale of the landslide and the dimensions of the catastrophe.
By way of the amount and the extent of the injury precipitated, the collapse of the Birch Glacier was unprecedented.
“I used to be speechless,” mentioned Matthias Huss, a number one glacier specialist at Zurich’s Federal Institute of Know-how to the BBC.
“It was the worst case that might occur.”
We reported on the catastrophe on the time on PlanetSKI:
The village of 300 folks had been evacuated, however one particular person selected to remain behind and was pronounced as ‘lacking’ after the landslide.
The physique of a 64-year-old man was recovered this week.
“As a part of a coordinated search operation within the Tennmatten space of Blatten, human stays had been discovered and recovered,” mentioned the Valais Cantonal Police in a press release.
Formal identification of the stays is now underway.
Round 200 civil defence staff, who’ve been monitoring the river and lake and overseeing the exclusion zone, undertook the preliminary clean-up work and additional evaluation have been remodeled the previous month.
Photos of the valley from area have been taken by the OLI-2 instrument on Landsat 9 satellite tv for pc.
The photographs reveal a panorama dramatically altered by nature’s power.
Satellite tv for pc pictures present the huge swath of brown and gray particles slicing by way of the panorama, a pointy reminder of the facility and unpredictability of glacial areas in a warming world.
Picture c/o NASA
So, what about re-building of Blatten and its reconstruction?
There’s a physique of view for Blatten to be rebuilt within the Lötschental Valley and there’s political help for the concept.
“Blatten nonetheless has a future,” declared the village’s mayor, Matthias Bellwald, instantly after the catastrophe.
“We’ll return there.”
He nonetheless has the identical view.
“I’m not a utopian,” he mentioned at a public assembly this month.
“I’ve a imaginative and prescient that’s possible.
“It’s a number of work, that’s for positive.”
The authorities shocked attendees on the assembly by presenting a roadmap to rebuild the village over the subsequent three to 5 years.
Swiss insurers have put the price of the injury at CHF 320m (£292m).
Constructing on the particles cone, which is as much as 35m thick in locations, is very unlikely as this can be very unstable.
The thought of eradicating the massive piles of particles is unrealistic and harmful.
Two close by hamlets spared by the landslide, Eisten and Weissenried, could possibly be developed right into a ‘New Blatten’ along with the prevailing centre of Blatten.
Preliminary work will start on creating the 2 hamlets this 12 months.
An emergency entry street is already beneath building, with water, sewage and electrical energy provides to be provisionally put in.
In 2026, additional work is deliberate, together with emptying the dammed lake and re-directing the Lonza river.
Underneath the bold plan, the primary momentary buildings can be erected in 2027.
The development of a brand new village centre, with multi-purpose buildings, a church, village store and inns would start in 2028.
The municipality additionally plans to develop new housing.
The primary folks ought to have the ability to settle within the village centre of Blatten once more from 2030 in accordance with Mayor Bellwald.
Based on NeueZurcher Zeitung, the structure agency Herzog & de Meuron has already created visible plans.
Many questions stay about authorisation procedures, the political course of, financing, security – and whether or not the individuals who had been evacuated will truly need to return.
The Valais cantonal hazard map reveals that just about all of the Lötschental valley is classed as a purple zone – which means it’s thought-about to be at excessive threat of landslides, floods and avalanches.
Exterior these purple zones, the terrain may be very steep and there’s restricted out there constructing areas.
Surroundings Minister, Albert Rösti, says he’s in favour of rebuilding Blatten in precept.
“We need to give the folks of the Lötschental a future,” he mentioned.
“However the choice to rebuild should be made by the folks of Blatten.
“We need to create the framework to make such a call potential.
“The street is rocky, within the truest sense of the phrase.
“Advanced questions come up, however the decisive components will likely be security and the wants of the inhabitants.”
There might want to protecting constructions constructed, however this type of infrastructure is dear.
A pure hazard professional on the College of Bern, Andreas Zischg, mentioned it could be potential to rebuild in one of many many purple zones within the Lötchental utilizing new infrastructure and boundaries to dam landslides.
“We are able to both construct avalanche safety constructions or erect massive protecting partitions to cut back the hazard to a medium or residual stage. We are able to then rebuild on this zone,” he informed Swiss public radio, RTS.
The mountain village of Bondo in canton Graubünden in southeastern Switzerland, was hit by a landslide in 2017.
New protecting partitions, bridges and retention basins have been constructed at a price CHF52 million (£47m), virtually half of which was coated by the federal authorities.
The way forward for Blatten, and the way the authorities react, will likely be of consequence for a lot of mountain communities in Switzerland, the Alps and past.
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