Swiss village was evacuated because of danger signs noted by scientists.
Evacuation was seen as a precautionary measure.
On Wednesday, village was destroyed by a terrible landslide.
BBC article with embedded videos:
Scientists indicate that the shrinking of Swiss glaciers, and the decline in permafrost that helps to stabilize the mountains, are signs of global warming and climate change.
The Swiss glaciers have been shrinking since the late 19th century. A very early sign of global warning, perhaps.
Thank god they evacuated everyone. It’s good that scientists were monitoring the mountain and they were able to take that precaution - and that the people listened. It could have been a huge tragedy otherwise.
My understanding is that there was an extended period of colder weather until the middle of the nineteenth century, called the “Little Ice Age.” The end of that period may explain why the glaciers started to shrink.
What that story never says is how far in advance the evacuation happened.
I know it’s not a joking matter, but… you really couldn’t pick a better name for a town to get blattened by an avalanche.
It does. Ironically, farmlands and some entire villages in the Swiss Alps were lost in the 17th century to encroaching glaciers due to the LIA. These began to recede in the latter part of the 19th century due to the return of more normal regional temperatures and had little or nothing to do with anthropogenic global warming. Due in part to having been mitigated by aerosol pollution, AGW didn’t start to have major global impacts until much later in the 20th century.
I Google mapped this place, as I do frequently when reading stories and want to “see” the location, and it was a very neat place. There are a couple “roads” that I thought must be hiking trails heading up the mountains but then I found a small car at the end of one and more buildings.
Sad story. And sadly, more to come.
The evacuation orders were issued about a week ago, I believe. About 300 people lived there.
I thought of the Oso, Washington disaster that happened in 2014, although that one happened with little or no known warning.
Evacuation of Blatten was ordered on May 19th.
Downstream villagers have been advised to be prepared for evacuation. Fortunately it appears that the flooding may not be so bad.
Interestingly, when I listened to one of the news reports about the actual landslide, most of it was in German. The English part? “Worst-case scenario.” It seems for such horrible things, only English is enough.
“Blatt” means leaf in German, such as a leaf of paper, or watch the leaves fall. So the word play only works in English. 
No, it was all in German. They were just warning residents to stock up on sausage and cheese.
(but seriously, that would have been a direct quote from the researchers, who were presumably English-speaking)
Not necessarily. In German reports the term “worst case scenario” is often used instead of the clumsier “schlechtmöglischster Ausgang”, and understood by most.
Is that an easy word for Germans to say?
Not the easiest word in the German language, that’s why I called it clumsy. Though I just noticed that I mistyped the word, in fact it’s “schlechtmöglichster”, but that doesn’t make it easier.
I’d use schlechtestmöglicher, though, because it is schlecht that is elevated to the superlative. Or “worst case” if I im a hurry.
You’re right, that would be the correct variant, but I see after googling that both variants are common even in serious publications like newspapers and magazines.