A predicted collapse
Radar showed the Trift Glacier on the Weissmies speeding up to 2 m a day. The village was evacuated, and the ice fell the next morning.
In September 2017 part of the Trift Glacier on the Weissmies, above Saas-Grund, began to move unusually fast. A radar system, reinstalled on 7 September, measured about 80 cm per day at first and more than 2 m per day two days later.
On 9 September authorities evacuated around 220 people. Glaciologists including Martin Funk of ETH Zurich predicted the collapse for the following morning. On 10 September about 300,000 m³ of ice broke off. The debris stopped short of the houses and no one was hurt.
It is one of the clearest cases of a glacier collapse forecast in time, and a model for monitoring unstable glaciers elsewhere.
Sources
- The Local (2017). Radar that predicted Trift glacier collapse was installed just days earlier. www.thelocal.ch/20170911/radar-that-predicted-trift-glacier-collapse-was-installed-just-days-earlier