A 100-meter-deep layer of rock and ice debris is covering the Swiss village of Blatten after a glacier collapsed from a nearby mountainside. DW's Rosie Birchard met with survivors and experts assessing the disaster's aftermath.
00:01Buried under this brown debris is the Swiss village of Blatton,
00:06swallowed up by the Birch Glacier.
00:10Daniel's home is buried too, deep in what is now a disaster zone.
00:20It was like an explosion, like an explosion in my heart.
00:23We knew immediately that everything was destroyed.
00:26We lost our home, our stable and of course all our memories.
00:29We lived in a little paradise.
00:35One person is still unaccounted for after last week's powerful collapse.
00:39But all other residents were evacuated before the deluge.
00:43As a wealthy country well used to mountain living, Switzerland was prepared.
00:48Geologists predicted an incident, though the speed and intensity was a surprise.
00:54So there is the glacier retreat.
00:56There is the rock phase that destabilises, the permafrost that is probably melting up there.
01:02And altogether it makes a very big event.
01:06It's difficult yet to be able to say, OK, this is because of climate change and this one is not.
01:12So it's hard to put a label on an event.
01:14But we are facing really large temperatures here in the Alps.
01:20Now authorities are monitoring the zone and putting flood prevention measures in place in nearby towns.
01:26We now have to see how the dangers develop further at the site of the damage.
01:32Lock masses could continue to fall from the mountain.
01:36And we have to keep monitoring how the danger develops in terms of the course of the river.
01:42But that's no mean feat, with the site still too unstable for any clear-up to begin.
01:51So what you see behind me is a helicopter taking off to transport scientists to what is left of the Swiss village of Blatton here in the Swiss Alps.
02:01For now there are no further evacuations planned but we are told that the surrounding region still remains on high alert.
02:07A few minutes drive away we meet Alex.
02:11He's busy collecting clothes and other basics for neighbours who he fears may never return.
02:17Will people be compensated for the cost of their belongings?
02:23Because if they're gone for 10 years or 20 years, they won't come back.
02:30Daniel tells us he wants to stay in his home region.
02:34But he has no idea what the future holds.
02:37We now have to find a new place to live and a new purpose.
02:44It will definitely take some time until we can find our way again.
02:52For now he can only look out at what was.
02:55And hope the fallout of the collapse that turned this alpine idol into no man's land is contained.
