US EditionSwiss Glacier Collapse Could Cost Huge Sums: Insurers
- On Wednesday, the Birch glacier in southern Switzerland dramatically collapsed, sending debris into the Lotschental valley and destroying most of Blatten village.
- The collapse followed a fortnight of rockfalls dumping three million cubic metres onto the glacier, with thawing permafrost likely destabilizing the mountain, though experts say it is too early to link directly to climate change.
- The village of Blatten, which had a population of 300 and was evacuated the previous week due to looming danger, has been largely destroyed. Remaining buildings are now flooded by an artificial lake created when a two-kilometre-long debris dam blocked the Lonza River.
- The Swiss Insurance Association described the event as a major disaster with an unprecedented scale and expected losses reaching several hundred million francs, while the search continues for a 64-year-old man believed caught in the danger zone.
- Celeste Saulo from the World Meteorological Organization highlighted the disaster as a strong indication of the impacts of global warming, while Maarten van Aalst emphasized the critical importance of implementing early warning systems to address risks associated with a changing climate.
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44 Articles
Cost of Swiss glacier collapse could reach hundreds of millions of francs
The dramatic collapse of Switzerland's Birch glacier, which wiped out a village, is an unprecedented disaster likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, the Swiss Insurance Association (SIA) said on Monday.
InsideNoVA.com
Swiss glacier collapse could cost huge sums: insurers
The dramatic collapse of Switzerland's Birch glacier, which wiped out a village, is an unprecedented disaster likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, the Swiss Insurance Association said Monday.
The collapse of a glacier in Switzerland that destroyed a village below last week is a sinister "unprecedented", with damage that could go up "to several hundred million francs", according to the Swiss insurance association.
Glacier collapse in Swiss Alps no exception, permafrost acts like glue.
After the massive glacial break-down in the canton of Valais, the rubble piles up to 100 meters above the buried village of Blatten. The authorities announced this after initial measurements. The terrain is still so unstable that clean-up work is impossible. As cantonal geologist Raphael Mayoraz told the Swiss newspaper Le Nouvelliste, the material is currently "solid", but this can change at any time. The expert, together with specialists, had …
In the Swiss canton of Valais, large parts of the Birch glacier have crashed. Millions of tons of rock had been sunk down on the glacier by an unstable rock on Mount Kleines Nesthorn. Finally, it broke down and crashed into the valley, along with rubble and stones. The village of Blatten was almost completely destroyed. Thanks to early warning, the 300 inhabitants of the village could be evacuated in time.
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