Pauline
Forums Admin
Blatten, a village in the Valais canton of Switzerland, is covered by a landslide. The village had been evacuated a week earlier. When I looked on Google Maps to see where this was I found a marker I put near the town saying “Guardian article says Lötschental most beautiful valley in Switzerland”.
Where we stay, and will be on Friday, is on the other side of these mountains, the north side, and only a few miles west. Blatten is just east of Crans Montana. Our valley has a similar setup, a narrow valley with a small village at the end and large glaciers in the mountains above. I’ll try not to think about this when we are there!
www.theguardian.com
The Guardian: ‘This is ground zero for Blatten’: the tiny Swiss village engulfed by a mountain, 1 June 2025
From the article: For weeks the weight had sat above the village, nine million tonnes of rock precariously resting on an ancient slab of ice. A chunk of the Kleines Nesthorn mountain’s peak had crumbled, and its rubble hung over the silent, empty streets of Blatten, held back only by the glacier. The ice groaned beneath the pressure.
On Wednesday afternoon, in an instant, it gave way. The ice cracked, then crumbled. The entire mass descended into the valley below, obliterating the village that had been there for more than 800 years.
“Blatten has been wiped away. Erased, obliterated, destroyed, stamped into the ground,” the village’s mayor, Matthias Bellwald, said on Friday. “The memories preserved in countless books, photo albums, documentation – everything is gone. In short, this is ground zero for Blatten.”
Where we stay, and will be on Friday, is on the other side of these mountains, the north side, and only a few miles west. Blatten is just east of Crans Montana. Our valley has a similar setup, a narrow valley with a small village at the end and large glaciers in the mountains above. I’ll try not to think about this when we are there!
‘This is ground zero for Blatten’: the tiny Swiss village engulfed by a mountain
‘The memories preserved in countless books, photo albums, documentation – everything is gone,’ says village’s mayor
The Guardian: ‘This is ground zero for Blatten’: the tiny Swiss village engulfed by a mountain, 1 June 2025
From the article: For weeks the weight had sat above the village, nine million tonnes of rock precariously resting on an ancient slab of ice. A chunk of the Kleines Nesthorn mountain’s peak had crumbled, and its rubble hung over the silent, empty streets of Blatten, held back only by the glacier. The ice groaned beneath the pressure.
On Wednesday afternoon, in an instant, it gave way. The ice cracked, then crumbled. The entire mass descended into the valley below, obliterating the village that had been there for more than 800 years.
“Blatten has been wiped away. Erased, obliterated, destroyed, stamped into the ground,” the village’s mayor, Matthias Bellwald, said on Friday. “The memories preserved in countless books, photo albums, documentation – everything is gone. In short, this is ground zero for Blatten.”