The 1,300 residents of the village in Switzerland’s Bern canton live in the midst of a charming landscape including sharp peaks, white glaciers, steep green valleys and it is this natural surrounding that could take it over, as per a report by CNN. The Swiss village of Kandersteg could be destroyed by a landslide due to an unstable mountain rock formation, and scientists are linking the threat to thawing permafrost and glacier dynamics.
Sensors monitoring GPS locations on the Spitzer Stein showed the mountain shifting by up to 70 centimetres (2.3 feet) a day, said Kandersteg’s mayor Rene Maeder. As glaciers permafrost thaw, the frozen soil sediment and rock that bind and hold mountains together melt due to higher temperatures caused by climate change, ultimately increasing the threat of landslides in the Swiss Alps.
Kandersteg was a prime example of an area with historical structural instability that could be aggravated by many factors, including permafrost, said Robert Kenner at the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos. “What calmed down for about 3,000 years is now reactivated,” he said. 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. “In the mountains and in the unconsolidated debris, there is lots of ice,” Stoffel said.
“Once this ice is melting, it acts like a cement. These mountain slopes will become increasingly unstable.”
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 all of Blatten, a village with 300 residents, with mud. Blatten was evacuated 10 days before the deluge, which caused insurance losses of 320 million Swiss francs ($400 million), an initial estimate by the Swiss insurance association showed. As glaciers permafrost thaw, the frozen soil sediment and rock that bind and hold mountains together melt due to higher temperatures caused by climate change, ultimately increasing the threat of landslides in the Swiss Alps.
This village had been evacuated earlier as a precaution.
Nathan Solothurnmann, a climate and energy expert for Greenpeace Switzerland, says that climate change means landslides or avalanches will become more common.