The village of Blatten, Switzerland, was almost entirely wiped out by a landslide resulting from glacier collapse on Wednesday. The residents and most livestock had already been evacuated, but at least one person is reported missing.
Video of the collapse and before-and-after shots spread online, shocking social media users worldwide and stirring climate crisis fears.
Blatten, Switzerland wiped out by glacier collapse
According to reports, the landslide left 90 percent of the village buried in mud and debris. This has blocked a nearby river, raising concerns about additional flooding. The impact of the collapse was strong enough to register as a 3.1-magnitude earthquake.
Swiss authorities ordered Blatten’s 300 residents to evacuate on May 19, 2025, and the vast majority are safe. Footage of a helicopter airlifting a cow out of the area days after the order drew online attention, though this is a more common occurrence in the Alps than you might think.
— PitunisWorld
INCREDIBLE: Cows airlifted from Blatten, Switzerland, as a massive landslide threatens the Alpine village!
Over 300 residents & livestock, including 26 cows, 190 sheep, & 20 rabbits, were evacuated since Saturday due to unstable rocks & glacier near Bietschhorn. One… pic.twitter.com/r4bZVYYY29
(@ScMesab) May 21, 2025
More shocking than a flying cow is the footage of the landslide itself. A minute-long video spreading on Bluesky shows the Birch Glacier breaking, causing a slide that barrels toward the camera just outside of Blatten and kicks up a huge debris cloud.
Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter shared a photo of the aftermath on X along with a statement.
“It is terrible when one loses their homeland,” she wrote. “In these hours, I feel for the residents of Blatten.”
“Every day brings new climate disaster horrors”
The images of Blatten’s destruction dredged up further concerns over the accelerating climate crisis. According to New Scientist, glaciers in the Swiss Alps lost 10 percent of their volume from global warming in a single year, between 2022 and 2023, and continue to shrink.
People responding to before-and-after images of Blatten online often made the link between this disaster and climate change.
“Every day brings new climate disaster horrors that never even occurred to me as a possibility,” wrote X user @pandaminatrix.
“People were evacuated prior to the collapse but this is the climate crisis that those in power throughout our land and throughout the world would rather we ignored,” said @Siobhan23738909.
Back on Bluesky, landscape ecologist Dr. Carolyn Görres warned that permafrost thawing will continue to make mountains less stable, increasing the risk of slides.
“It is not clear yet how much permafrost thawing contributed to rocks falling on the glacier, but more mountains will collapse due to global warming,” she explained. “Permafrost is permanently frozen ground. Common at high elevation. Ice acts like glue in weathered rocks. Melt the glue and the rocks follow gravity.”
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