GENEVA (Reuters) -A huge chunk of a glacier in the Swiss Alps broke off on Wednesday afternoon causing a deluge of ice, mud and rock to crash onto a mountain village evacuated earlier this month due to the risk of a rockslide, authorities said.
“An unbelievable amount of material thundered down into the valley,” said Matthias Ebener, a spokesperson for local authorities, noting that there were no reports of human casualties.
Buildings and infrastructure in Blatten, a village of about 300 people which was evacuated on May 19 after geologists had identified the risk of an imminent avalanche of rock and ice from above, were hit hard by the rockslide, Ebener said.
Swiss national broadcaster SRF said houses were destroyed by the slide and that it had buried a large part of the village nestled in the Loetschental valley in southern Switzerland.
Swiss authorities have been monitoring the slopes above Blatten since ordering residents to leave their homes.
A video shared widely on social media showed the dramatic moment when the glacier partially collapsed, creating a huge cloud that covered part of the mountain as rock and debris came rumbling down into the outskirts of the village.
(Reporting by Olivia Le PoidevinEditing by Dave Graham)
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