Overview

• In late May, the Birchgletscher collapse sent three million cubic meters of ice and rock into the Lötschental, nearly burying the evacuated village of Blatten.
• Thanks to early warning systems, residents evacuated before the slide but a 64-year-old man remains unaccounted for.
• Experts at the Alpine Climate Summit on Zugspitze called for interdisciplinary collaboration to devise adaptation and mitigation strategies across tourism, agriculture and infrastructure.
• Data presented at the summit showed Swiss glaciers lost around ten percent of their mass between 2022 and 2023, exacerbating permafrost thaw and rockfall risks.
• The Swiss government and Canton Wallis have initiated site monitoring and are drafting reconstruction plans for the village of Blatten.