What happened to Birch Glacier is what we would expect from rising temperatures in the Alps and elsewhere,” one scientist said. Thawing permafrost exacerbated by human-caused global heating is the likely culprit behind a massive glacier collapse that buried nearly the entire Swiss town of Blatten,

The landslide that buried most of a Swiss village this week is focusing renewed attention on the role of global warming in glacier collapses around the world and the increasing dangers.

The landslide sent plumes of dust skyward and coated with mud nearly all of an Alpine village that authorities had evacuated earlier this month as a precaution.