The Alps are melting: even the Matterhorn is warming up for a shakedown

Last month, a Swiss village was buried when the mountain above 'exploded'. The impact of climate change is no longer anecdotal, writes Giles Whittell

- Giles Whittell

High above the village of Kandersteg, the Spitzer Stein is on the move. It’s sliding at a rate of six to seven metres a year, mainly in the summer. This is unfortunate, because the Spitzer Stein is a mountain and Kandersteg sits at the entrance to one of Switzerland’s most important railway tunnels.

As much as 16m cubic metres of rock and ice - six Giza pyramids' worth - could give way at any moment.

When it goes, some of it will cascade directly to the valley floor but much of it will crash into an idyllic lake above the village, like a giant jumping into a bath. “That’s the worst-case scenario, when it all goes at once,” says Prof Jan Beutel of the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

In that event, a wall of water will chase the rockfall down towards the village, sweeping up trees, houses and boulders. It's unlikely anyone will die, because dozens of motion sensors and years of planning mean evacuation orders will have been enforced well in advance. But big rockfalls tend to take on lives of their own, spreading debris over wide areas and shaking the mountains for miles around with the seismic impact of an earthquake.