Valais authorities are optimistic Can Blatten be rebuilt?
A glacier collapse has wiped out the village of Blatten in Valais. While politicians are determined to rebuild, experts warn of challenges ahead. The old Blatten will probably never exist again.
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- A glacier fall has completely buried Blatten, all the buildings have been destroyed.
- Politicians want to rebuild Blatten, but experts doubt that this is possible in the same place.
- Gondo, another Valais municipality, was rebuilt after a major disaster.
The village of Blatten no longer exists. All the buildings have either been buried or flooded since the glacier collapsed on Wednesday afternoon. "An entire village has disappeared from the map," said Valais State Councillor Christophe Darbellay.
For Darbellay, however, one thing is clear: the Lötschental should remain inhabited. "Leaving the valley is not an option," he said. The Valais authorities want to rebuild Blatten.
Matthias Bellwald, the mayor of Blatten, also believes in reconstruction. He is glad that all the inhabitants of Blatten were evacuated and brought to safety. "That gives us the strength to do what lies ahead. We have lost the village, but not the heart. Even though the village lies under a large cone of rubble, we know where our houses and our church have to stand again," said Bellwald.
However, geologist Marco Buser dampened the Blattner's optimism in an interview with "20 Minuten": "With the millions of cubic meters that have filled up the valley, the costs are simply too high." The masses of rubble that now cover the village would hardly be removed again. "The village of Blatten will no longer exist as it was," said Buser. "It can be rebuilt somewhere else, moved to other places. But not in the same place, these masses will not move."
Walter Wildi, professor emeritus of geology at the University of Geneva, also confirmed this to Blick:"The village will have to be rebuilt somewhere else," he said. It is important that the "new" Blatten is built closer to the slope.
Ideas for the reconstruction already exist
How exactly the reconstruction could look is still unclear to the Valais authorities. "Nobody can say whether it will be in exactly the same place," said State Councillor Darbellay. "But we have to offer the population of Blatten a long-term perspective."
Former SP President, National Councillor and current hotelier Peter Bodenmann gave an idea of what the reconstruction could look like in the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper. The best way to do this would be with an ideas competition. He hopes for something new, a "Blatten 2.0". Instead of four different hotels, a joint zero-energy hotel, for example.
Another Valais municipality knows how to rebuild a village: Gondo. On October 14, 2000, a mudslide caused by a storm in Gondo washed away ten houses and killed 13 people. "You never forget that in your life," said the mayor Roland Squaratti to SRF.
There was great solidarity with Gondo at the time. Swiss Solidarity collected 74 million francs for the victims of the storms. A third of this went to the two hardest-hit communities of Gondo and Baltschieder. Gondo has since been rebuilt.
And Blatten is not alone these days. Swiss Solidarity wants to provide direct financial support to those affected and has called for donations. The sponsorship for mountain communities has made one million Swiss francs available for Blatten.
After the reconstruction of Gondo, however, many residents never returned, the fear of another disaster is too great. Instead of 161 people living in Gondo at the time, only 75 remain today. It remains to be seen whether the residents of Blatten will return to their village once it has been rebuilt, or whether they too are too afraid of another disaster.