The risks of mountain living

Having been raised at the bottom of a steep mountain valley in France, I’ve always been conscious of what hangs up above my head and quite cognizant of the saying “What goes up must go down...” After what happened recently in Blatten, Switzerland or last year at La Bérarde in France, one logical question is whether there are more alpine villages, or for that matter, mountain villages the world over, running a very high risk of meeting the same fate? 

These communities are naturally vulnerable to disasters due to their locations in deep valleys below steep, unstable terrain and the increasing results of climate change. For one thing melting glaciers destabilize mountain slopes, leading to landslides and rockfalls, like what happened in Italy when the Marmolada glacier collapsed in 2022. 

Permafrost thawing not only caused the Blatten slide as it weakened the rock faces, increasing the risk of massive collapses but it’s close to what also happened in that same country during the 2017 Piz Cengalo landslide. Other Swiss communities like Gondo, Randa, and Saas-Balen are also at risk due to historic landslides. On the French side, towns in the Écrins Massif (like La Bérarde) and the entire Chamonix Valley face glacier and rockfall threats. 

On the Italian side of Mt. Blanc, a town like Courmayeur and further away, Valfurva near Passo Stelvio, are also significantly exposed to glacier instability. In Austria, Galtür is threatened by avalanche and Heiligenblut by glacial floods. Up in Norway, Longyearbyen (in Svalbard) faces landslides due to permafrost melt. In North America there’s the Alaska’s Barry Arm landslide threat and in Canmore (Alberta) the town is at risk of rockslides. In the Himalayas, many villages in Nepal, India (Uttarakhand), and in Bhutan also face glacial lake outbursts.

Natural catastrophes have happened in the mountain for centuries. It’s called erosion. In my hometown of Montriond, its pristine lake was formed by a massive collapse of the “Rocher de l’ Échelle” a limestone cliff standing 2,500 feet higher that obstructed the local brook (Dranse de Montriond), creating a natural dam 600 feet high that formed a mile long lake, 100 feet deep. 

 

This incident dates back approximately 500 to 550 years. Over time, the lake has experienced significant fluctuations in level between spring and autumn. To stabilize its water level, sealing work was carried out in 1990.  

In the majority of cases, all these villages or places are visited by tourists and rely on skiing, hiking, and mountaineering for survival. Once a catastrophe hits, like it just did in Blatten, relocating the entire villages elsewhere isn’t always feasible. When it is, it often proves to be costly and logistically difficult. As temperatures rise, glaciers retreat faster, and as jet-streams tend to get stuck in place for a much longer time, extreme rain or snow falls increase leading to more intense landslides, floods, and avalanches. 

This means that many alpine and mountain villages worldwide are at risk, particularly those near glaciers, steep cliffs, or unstable slopes. While mitigation efforts (like early warning systems) help, some communities may eventually need to relocate—or face tragic consequences.