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'I lost everything': Residents in shock after landslide buries Swiss village
Residents have told of their devastation after a landslide destroyed the vast majority of a village in Switzerland.
Around 90% of the picturesque village of Blatten was engulfed in ice, mud and rock on Wednesday after a large chunk of the Birch Glacier above the village broke off, causing the landslide. Its 300 residents had already been evacuated after part of the mountain behind the glacier began to crumble.
Rescue teams and search dogs continued to scour the area on Thursday for a missing 64-year-old man after an initial drone scan found nothing. As people try to recover, experts also warned of the risks of flooding, with vast mounds of debris, almost 2km across, blocking the River Lonza, causing a huge lake to swell.
"I don't want to talk just now. I lost everything yesterday.
I hope you understand," said one middle-aged woman from Blatten, as she sat alone in front of a church in the neighbouring village of Wiler. A nearby road, which once crossed the valley, now ends abruptly in a mass of mud that had swallowed her village.
Martin Henzen, another Blatten resident, said he was still struggling to process what happened. "Most are calm, but they're obviously affected," he said.
While preparations had been made, it was "not for this scenario.
Amir Nisi
Creative and experienced content writer with 6+ years of experience lazy to create unique content strategy for News5 to turn website visitors into customers.
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