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Geneva correspondent
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In a small village in Switzerland’s beautiful Loetschental valley, Matthias Bellwald walks down the main street and is greeted every few steps by locals who smile or offer a handshake or friendly word.
Mr Bellwald is a mayor, but this isn’t his village. Two months ago his home, three miles away in Blatten, was wiped off the map when part of the mountain and glacier collapsed into the valley.
The village’s 300 residents had been evacuated days earlier, after geologists warned that the mountain was increasingly unstable. But they lost their homes, their church, their hotels and their farms.
Lukas Kalbermatten also lost the hotel that had been in his family for three generations.”The feeling of the village, all the small alleys through the houses, the church, the memories you had when you played there as a child… all this is gone.”
Today, he is living in borrowed accommodation in the village of Wiler. Mr Bellwald has a temporary office there too, where he is supervising the massive clean-up operation – and the rebuild.
The good news is, he believes the site can be cleared by 2028, with the first new houses ready by 2029. But it comes with a hefty pricetag.
Rebuilding Blatten is estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps as much as $1 million (USD) per resident.
Voluntary contributions from the public quickly raised millions of Swiss francs to help those who had lost their homes. The federal government and the canton
