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Life on thin ice: Switzerland’s glacier collapse rings global alarm

While Switzerland has the capacity to monitor glacier hazards, many countries do not, including Indonesia, whose Carstensz Glacier in Papua is among the most at risk.

Radhiyya Indra (The Jakarta Post)
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Geneva, Switzerland
Tue, July 8, 2025 Published on Jul. 7, 2025 Published on 2025-07-07T22:36:12+07:00

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Serene hazard: The river Simme flows along an embankment through Lenk im Simmental from Plaine Morte (Dead Plain), a glacier situated at a height of up to 2,840 meters above sea level in the Bernese Alps. Its glacial lake drained spontaneously in 2018 and caused flooding in the village. JP/Radhiyya Indra Serene hazard: The river Simme flows along an embankment through Lenk im Simmental from Plaine Morte (Dead Plain), a glacier situated at a height of up to 2,840 meters above sea level in the Bernese Alps. Its glacial lake drained spontaneously in 2018 and caused flooding in the village. JP/Radhiyya Indra (JP/Radhiyya Indra)

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or people who live near the Swiss Alps, life is quiet and serene. This is especially true for the 300 or so inhabitants of a tiny village called Blatten in Valais, a canton in southern Switzerland.

But few among the village residents, let alone even scientists, could have predicted that their lives would be rocked by a sudden glacier avalanche.

That disaster in late May has continued to draw scrutiny of the unpredictable nature of glaciers and the impact of climate change across the globe.

On May 28, residents of Blatten watched from a distance as the Birch Glacier collapsed, engulfing their alpine village in a nearly unprecedented disaster. While Swiss authorities had managed to evacuate most of the residents a few days earlier, one elderly villager who reportedly left the evacuation zone was killed.

In the aftermath of the cataclysmic disaster, the village of Blatten was no more, leaving the surviving residents displaced.

The glacier avalanche that occurred in Switzerland’s heavily monitored mountainous region shocked experts worldwide and raised questions about why it escaped forecasts.

“All the people I talked to, glaciologists, everyone said they couldn’t predict this kind of event,” Luigi Jorio, a journalist with international news outlet SWI swissinfo.ch who has covered the environment for over 15 years, told The Jakarta Post early in June.

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