Hundreds of residents have been forced to evacuate a small village in Switzerland after a huge glacier collapse flattened homes and partially destroyed the alpine hamlet. Villagers in Blatten were warned to leave the area for their safety just days before a mass of rock and ice crashed down a nearby mountainside on Wednesday, May 28. Footage broadcast on Swiss media and online showed the terrifying moment when buildings were submerged under the landslip, and one person has been reported missing, according to the BBC.

Stephane Ganzer, head of security in Switzerland's Valais region, told local TV channel Canal9: "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." He added that the situation "could get worse", as the collapsed glacier increased the risk of dammed water overflowing from a riverbed near the village that had also been buried.

Blatten's 300 residents were told to evacuate their homes on May 19 after geological inspections of the mountainside raised the alert of a possible collapse caused by climate change-related thawing.

Authorities in the region said the disaster was caused by a huge chunk of the Birch Glacier, above the village, breaking off, and Swiss Government officials said steps would be taken to help those who had lost their homes.

Speaking in the immediate aftermath of the landslide, Blatten's mayor, Matthias Bellwald, admitted that “the impossible has happened” but pledged to restore the village to its former state and support devastated locals.

"We have lost our village, but not our heart," he said in an emotional statement. "We will support each other and console each other. After a long night, it will be morning again."

Expert monitoring of Switzerland's glaciers also led to the evacuation of Brienz, a village in the Bernese Oberland region, two years ago, with residents only allowed to return for short periods at a time ever since.

Switzerland has more glaciers than any other European country, but lost 4% of its total volume in 2023, and the most recent reports from Swiss glaciologists have suggested it could lose all its glaciers by the end of the century unless global temperatures are kept below 1.5C.