In a natural disaster last week that local scientists are attributing to melting permafrost, the side of a mountain basically gave away above the remote village of Bondo near the Swiss-Italian border, leaving eight hikers missing. A second sizable slide also hit on Friday. No one was injured in that event although villagers who were allowed to return home after the initial disaster had to be re-evacuated.
Marcia Phillips, a snow and permafrost expert for the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research told Reuters that a disaster like this had been in the works for thousands of years as, “permafrost, rock structure, water content and pressure above Bondo conspired to destabilize the 3,369-meter (11,053 ft) Piz Cengalo mountain.”
Switzerland’s average temperature has risen two degrees since measurements began being recorded in 1864 so more slides are probably on the horizon. “It’s more likely that the smaller events get more common, not the larger ones,” Phillips said.
Which could be more dangerous to more people. Permafrost is a permanently frozen layer of soil below the surface that’s common in glaciated regions. It helps solidify soil and rock in the earth. When it melts, the ground is destabilized.
The mountains in the region have had slides before, the last time in 2011. In this incident, the initial slide reportedly piled rubble some 150-feet high.
