An Alpine village in Switzerland was buried when a massive section of a glacier collapsed, with local authorities desperately searching for a missing man on Thursday. Blatten, which is situated below the Birch Glacier in the Lötschental Valley in the south of the country, was 90 percent covered by mud and icefall. The Swiss army has been deployed alongside rescue teams to search for the 64-year-old man who is feared to have been in the region hit by the debris on Wednesday. “What I can tell you at the moment is that about 90 percent of the village is covered or destroyed, so it’s a major catastrophe that has happened here in Blatten,” Stephane Ganzer, head of security in the canton of Valais, said, according to the Associated Press. The collapse also blocked off the Lonza River bed. “There’s a risk that the situation could get worse,” Ganzer added. Swiss Environment Minister Albert Rösti committed to helping villagers who have lost their homes due to the “extraordinary event.” Thankfully, authorities had ordered all 300 villagers and their livestock out of Blatten over a week earlier in anticipation of the collapse of the 52 million cubic feet glacier.
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