2025 Blatten landslide

The Lötschental, a valley, near Blatten on May 30, 2025 after the landslide

Blatten (2007), view from the north ­ west. In the top left corner, a stream can be seen (as a white line). That is where landslide came from. The landlslide then moved up the opposite slope, from where the picture was taken. Several houses on the left, before the bridge were unaffected by the landslide. As the landslide also blocked the river, they then sank into the lake that the river was building

The Blatten landslide, sometimes called a rock-fall or ice-avalanche, or glacier collapse, is a natural disaster that occurred on May 28, 2025. The landslide destroyed most of the village of Blatten in the Lötschental in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. The landslide was an avalanche, made of debris and ice. A glacier in the area of the Bietschhorn had collapsed and caused the landslide. Monitoring equipment was in place, which allowed to evacuate the village on May 19, about 10 days before the event. A shepherd was first reported missing, but he likely died.

Related pages

• Rock-fall

References

• Theodor Hügi, Hugo Ledermann, Ernst Schläppi: Sheet 1268 Lötschental (Atlas Sheet 82) – Explanations. In: Swiss Geological Commission, National Hydrology and Geology (ed.) : Geological Atlas of Switzerland 1:25 000, 1988 ( online ).

Other websites

• Landslide in the Lötschental: Blatten VS before and after the landslide – the pictures . In: srf.ch .