The Alps are beginning to fracture. Entire villages have been abandoned in recent years, as the ground beneath them slid away at terrifying speeds. Chunks of mountain have broken loose, tumbling into valleys and burying homes. Glaciers have collapsed without warning, sending torrents of ice and rock crashing. Scientists warn that the Alps are warming at twice the global average, melting the permafrost “glue” that binds the mountains together. READ & WATCH: The Alps Mountains Are COLLAPSING: Mega Landslides Are Imminent! Earthly Nov 30 report- transcript follows[Earthly channel dives into topics of scientific discoveries, conspiracy theories, and terrifying climate events, from United States since Oct 2022]
TRANSCRIPT:
High above Europe, the Alps rise like ancient guardians of stone and ice. A natural fortress that has shaped cultures, borders, and imaginations for centuries. To many, they appear eternal. Peaks destined to outlast empires and generations. Yet, this permanence may be nothing more than an illusion. The Alps, far from unshakable, are already beginning to fracture.
In recent years, entire villages have been abandoned as the ground beneath them slid away at terrifying speeds. In some places, whole chunks of mountains have broken loose, tumbling into valleys and burying homes beneath tons of rock and debris. Glaciers have collapsed without warning, sending torrents of ice and rock crashing onto climbers. Cracks are widening across slopes that once seemed unshakable, while torrents of meltwater and sudden floods tear through valleys below.
Scientists warn that the Alps are warming at twice the global average, melting the permafrost glue that binds the mountains together. The very foundation of Europe's greatest peaks is unraveling. This collapse is not a single event, but a relentless cascade of landslides, avalanches, and floods.
The question is no longer if collapse is coming, but how devastating it will be for the millions who live in the shadow of these crumbling giants….
1.31
Geology of the Alps
Stretching across eight countries from France and Switzerland through Italy, Austria, and into Slovenia, the Alps form the highest and most extensive mountain system in Europe. Spanning more than 200,000 square kilometers, they rise in iconic peaks such as Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, and the Aigger, dominating the landscape and shaping the lives of millions. Their story began roughly 40 to 25 million years ago when the African plate collided with the Eurasian plate, thrusting sediments from the ancient Tethus ocean upward into massive folds of rock.
The Alps that emerged are a relatively young mountain chain compared to the ancient Appalachians or Urals. Their youth explains their rugged beauty, sharp peaks, jagged ridges, and deeply in sized valleys. But geological youth also means instability.
The Alps are still rising today, lifted by the ongoing tectonic collision. GPS stations record an uplift of several millimeters each year. Yet what grows upward is destined to erode downward. Rivers carve valleys, glaciers grind at the bedrock, and earthquakes fracture slopes.
The result is a landscape constantly in flux, balanced precariously between uplift and collapse. What makes the Alps particularly fragile is their composition. Layers of limestone, dolomite, and shist are stacked and folded, riddled with faults and fractures.
3.00
These weaknesses provide natural pathways for water and ice, which expand and contract with temperature shifts, prying the mountains apart from within. Left undisturbed, this cycle of uplift and erosion would unfold over millions of years. But in the current geological age, human-driven warming has accelerated the timeline dramatically, amplifying natural forces until collapse is no longer a distant inevitability, but a present danger.
Historical Events of Collapse
For centuries, alpine communities have lived under constant threat of avalanches, rockfalls, and glacier floods, revealing the mountain's fragility. One of the earliest documented disasters occurred in 1818, when the Jetro Glacier in Switzerland damned a river with ice. A massive lake formed behind it. And when the dam burst, a torrent of water and debris swept through villages, killing hundreds.
In 1965, disaster struck the Matmark Dam construction site beneath the Allin Glacier. Without warning, a colossal mass of ice collapsed, burying 88 workers under thousands of tons of ice and rock. It was one of Switzerland's deadliest industrial disasters and a stark example of how fragile alpine glaciers could be.
Rockfalls have also shaped alpine history. In 1881, the village of Elm in eastern Switzerland was obliterated when quarrying destabilized a slope, unleashing 10 million cubic meters of rock and killing over 100 people. Even the iconic Matterhorn has shown its vulnerability. In 2003, a heat wave triggered a massive rockfall from its east face. These events show that collapse has always been part of alpine life.
4.50
Recent Events
But what was once rare is now accelerating into a relentless new normal. In recent years, the Alps have entered a new and alarming phase of collapse. Disasters once separated by centuries now unfold within months, even weeks, as warming accelerates the mountain's instability.
One of the most dramatic examples unfolded in Brienz, a small village in Switzerland. For decades, geologists had known the ground beneath the village was shifting slowly downhill. But in the spring of 2023, the movement suddenly accelerated to 2 m per day, forcing authorities to evacuate the entire village.
Weeks later, a massive rockfall thundered down the mountainside. By chance, most of the debris missed the heart of the village. But the event highlighted how entire Alpine communities could vanish instantly.
Then in 2024, the village of Blaten in Switzerland was evacuated after widening cracks, signaled imminent avalanches from the slopes above. Days later, the mountainside collapsed, burying parts of the area and confirming the community's worst fears.
Italy too has faced alpine catastrophe. In July 2022, a massive portion of the Marmalada glacier in the Dolomites collapsed after record-breaking heat. A wall of ice, rock, and snow roared down the mountain, killing 11 climbers and injuring many others.
Other signs of instability are emerging with glacial lakes forming rapidly and landslides growing frequent, blocking roads, damaging infrastructure, and proving the Alps are changing dangerously fast.
6.35
Why The Alps Are Collapsing
At the core of the Alps collapse lies the accelerating force of climate change, intensified by the mountains fragile geology. The Alps are warming at nearly twice the global average, compressing changes that would normally take centuries into mere decades. One of the most critical factors is permafrost. Much of the high Alps has long been underlain by permanently frozen ground, acting as a kind of glue that holds fractured rock together.
As temperatures rise, this permafrost is thawing. When the ice within cracks and pores melts, it removes the binding force that stabilizes entire cliffs. Rock faces that once seemed solid are suddenly fragile, primed to shatter under the force of gravity.
Glaciers too play a destabilizing role. For thousands of years, glaciers acted like buttresses, supporting the steep walls of valleys. As they retreat, some by hundreds of meters in just decades, they leave slopes over steepened and unsupported, ready to collapse.
Their melting also contributes to the growth of glacial lakes, which can burst catastrophically. Water further destabilizes the Alps. Heavy rainfall seeps into fractured rock, raising pressure and lubricating slopes. Combined with rapid snow melt and glacier retreat, this influx destabilizes entire valleys. Meanwhile, tectonic forces continue to push the Alps upward by millimeters each year, adding stress to an already fragile system.
The result is a perfect storm, rising temperatures, melting ice, heavier rains, and ongoing tectonic uplift converging to make the Alps collapse far faster than nature intended.
8.20
The Impending Disaster
If current trends persist, the Alps face a future of accelerating collapse. Villages like Brienz may become the norm with communities abandoning ancestral homes as instability spreads. Landslides could sever roads and railways, cutting off vital European corridors. Tourism, the lifeblood of many alpine regions, is highly vulnerable.
Ski resorts already suffer from shrinking snow cover. But collapsing glaciers and unstable peaks pose a greater threat. Disasters like the Marmolada glacier collapse damage the perception of safety, turning hiking, climbing, and skiing into dangerous risks. Hydro power, another cornerstone of alpine economies, faces grave danger. Dams beneath unstable slopes and fed by volatile glaciers could fail catastrophically.
9.10
A landslide into a reservoir could unleash tsunamis like the Vant Dam tragedy in Italy, which killed nearly 2,000 people. Most alarming is the potential for cascading disasters. Rockfalls creating lakes that burst or collapsing glaciers triggering avalanches. With millions living nearby, occasional tragedies may soon become an unrelenting cycle of disaster.
Future Outlook
Alpine nations are racing to confront this escalating crisis with some of the most advanced monitoring systems in the world. Switzerland, Austria, France, and Italy have built networks of sensors sensitive enough to detect slope movements by millimeters, while satellites, drones, and laser scanning track shifting glaciers, cracking rock faces, and thawing perafrost. These tools allow scientists to build detailed 3D models and predict collapses with growing accuracy.
When instability crosses critical thresholds, authorities move fast. Roads are sealed, tourism suspended, emergency services deployed. The evacuations of Brienz and Blaten showed how entire communities can be relocated in a matter of days. Such measures save lives, but they also reveal a harsh truth. Collapse cannot be prevented, only anticipated.
Scientists warn that by the end of this century, the Alps could lose up to 80% of their glaciers. Iconic peaks may be reshaped by rockfalls, valleys torn apart by floods and landslides, and whole villages erased from the map. The disasters at Brienz, Blotton, and Marmolada are warnings. The collapse is already underway. The only question is whether humanity can learn and adapt quickly enough before more communities share the same fate. END
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