Residents of the Swiss village of Kandersteg face a looming threat from an unstable mountain rock formation called Spitze Stei KANDERSTEG, Switzerland -- An unstable mountain rock formation looming above the Swiss village of Kandersteg threatens a landslide that could rival the disaster that destroyed nearby Blatten last year, a collapse scientists linked to thawing permafrost and glacier dynamics. The 1,300 residents of Kandersteg, in Switzerland’s Bern canton, live amid a quintessential Alpine landscape of sharp peaks, white glaciers, steep green valleys and the distant sound of cowbells. But a catastrophe looms over the quiet village: a mountainside rock formation called Spitze Stei, part of a mountain landscape increasingly affected by thawing permafrost, threatens to collapse into the valley in a massive landslide.
She said authorities took all the precautions they could. It’s nature and you never know,” Jüni added. As glaciers and permafrost — the frozen soil sediment and rock that acts like a glue holding mountains together — melt due to higher temperatures caused by climate change, the threat of landslides is rising in the Swiss Alps.
In May 2025, a huge mass of rock and ice from a glacier thundered down the mountainside in the nearby Loetschental valley, sending plumes of dust skyward and coating with mud nearly all of Blatten, which had been evacuated earlier as a precaution. Markus Stoffel, professor for climate change and natural risks at the University of Geneva, said climate change leads to the melting of both glaciers and permafrost. These mountain slopes will become increasingly unstable.” Locals in Kandersteg say their situation is different from Blatten and that preparations made already allow them to live calmly.
It’s a different situation,” said local resident Rudolf Isler. It’s been many years seeing stones falling from up there. The problem here is about global warming and rising temperatures.” If the entire unstable section of the Spitze Stei — estimated at roughly 15--20 million cubic meters — were to collapse, it would trigger a massive natural disaster.
But the rock is under constant monitoring, evacuation plans are prepared and experts say the rock is more likely to break down gradually than in one huge chunk. Nathan Solothurnmann, a climate and energy expert for Greenpeace Switzerland, says that climate change means landslides or avalanches will become more common.
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