Alpine village is largely destroyed when a Swiss glacier collapses

A huge mass of rock and ice from a glacier thundered down a Swiss mountainside on Wednesday, sending plumes of dust skyward and coating with mud nearly all of an Alpine village that authorities had evacuated earlier this month as a precaution.

GENEVA — A huge mass of rock and ice from a glacier thundered down a Swiss mountainside on Wednesday, sending plumes of dust skyward and coating with mud nearly all of an Alpine village that authorities had evacuated earlier this month as a precaution.

Video on social media and Swiss TV showed the mudslide near Blatten, in the southern Lötschental valley, with homes and buildings partially submerged under a mass of brownish sludge. Regional police said a 64-year-old man was reported missing, and search and rescue operations involving a drone with thermal camera were under way.

"What I can tell you at the moment is that about 90% of the village is covered or destroyed, so it's a major catastrophe that has happened here in Blatten," Stephane Ganzer, the head of security in the southern Valais region, told local TV channel Canal9.

Mud and rocks slide down a mountain after a glacier partially collapsed covering most of the village of Blatten, Switzerland on Wednesday.Pomona Media / via ReutersThe regional government said in a statement that a large chunk of the Birch Glacier above the village had broken off, causing the landslide which also buried the nearby Lonza River bed, raising the possibility of dammed water flows.

"There's a risk that the situation could get worse," Ganzer said, alluding to the blocked river.