Emergency response service of scientific data for Birch glacier landslide disaster in the Bratten area, Canton Valais, Switzerland (20250528)
Publish time: 2025/05/30
According to BBC reports, on May 28, 2025, a massive landslide occurred at the Birch Glacier in the Swiss Alps. Approximately 3.5 million cubic meters of ice, snow, and earth and rocks violently detached from the glacier summit at 3,500 meters above sea level and plunged into the valley at 1,500 meters elevation. The sliding mass, preliminarily estimated at 9 million metric tons, generated ground vibrations powerful enough to register a magnitude 3.1 event on seismic monitoring systems. The disaster buried nearly 90% of Blatten village in the valley below, leaving one person unaccounted for.