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A Mountain Peak Dropped 60 Feet in a Single Day — Scientists Fear This Could Be a Dangerous Sign

The tallest summit of a mountain in Switzerland was left dwarfed after a calamity that dented the beauty of landscape forever.
PUBLISHED 4 DAYS AGO
A snow-covered mountain peak reaching upto the clouds. (Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels Pixabay)
A snow-covered mountain peak reaching upto the clouds. (Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels Pixabay)

The word "climate change" is only the tip of an iceberg of crises searing beneath the superficial world. The Fluchthron mountain in the Silvretta Alps in Switzerland best attests to the hidden consequences of warming climates and altered weather patterns. The peak fell short by 60 feet (10 meters) of its original height due to the thawing of the permafrost layer, per a Live Science report. This resulted from a massive collapse of 3.5 million cubic feet of rock from a part of the summit crashing down into the valley. 

Pyramid-shaped mountains covered in snow in Antarctica. (Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels | Ogy Kovachev)
Pyramid-shaped mountains covered in snow. (Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels | Ogy Kovachev)

Originally, standing tall at 11,155 feet (3,400 meters), the Fluchthorn summit crumbled into the Futschol Valley on June 11, 2023, following a prolonged period of warmer temperatures. The main peak lost about 330 feet (100 meters) as it fell and is no longer the tallest peak in the Fluchthron mountain. The middle peak of 11,145 feet (3,397 meters) of the mountain is now the highest point, making it 60 feet shorter than initially observed. The peak is tucked in the Silvretta Alps on the border of Switzerland and Austria and sits amidst the Mischabel massif, the highest group of mountains in the country. The Dom, which sits at 14,911 feet, is recognized as the tallest mountain in the group. 

Iceberg Floating in Winter Water. (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Sebastien Vincon)
Iceberg Floating in Winter Water. (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Sebastien Vincon)

Riccardo Mizio, a mountain rescuer in the region shared his insights about the incident and revealed that a Christian cross that marked the peak was also missing. "Half of the summit was torn away by the demolition,” he told Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung, also affirming that there were no casualties. However, scientists fear that there are more such collapses to follow in a study published in the journal Geografiska Annaler, as the permafrost, that forms the foundation for these tall peaks to stand, unfreezes due to global warming. 



 

According to National Geographic Education, permafrost is the layer of ground that has frozen for ages, or at least two years, and significantly impacts the ecosystem. It is essentially composed of soil, gravel, and sand glued together by ice for years. The thickness of permafrost may range from less than a meter to as high as 1,500 meters, per NSIDC. The deepest permafrost is found in Siberia with a depth of 1,650 meters (5,410 feet). Now, the majority of the Alps is dependent on the permafrost to remain intact, devoid of which will make the mountains highly unstable causing rockfalls and landslides and pose a threat to life. Permafrost thawing, while common during the summers, has intensified due to the ongoing heatwaves in the Alps. This phenomenon has caused the frozen ice in the cracks of the mountains to thaw deeper than usual destabilizing the massive chunks of rocks. 

Glacier tipping down the slopes of mountains and collecting in the base (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Francesco Ungaro)
Glacier tipping down the slopes of mountains and collecting in the base (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Francesco Ungaro)

Weighing in on that, Geologist Jan-Christoph Otto of the University of Salzburg told Live Science that the severity of the crashing event is proportional to the depth of thawing in the rocks. “This mountain peak has been frozen for probably thousands of years…the mountain peak failure at Fluchthorn is most likely the result of extreme temperatures last summer or fall,” he noted. Most of the peaks in the Alps with a height above 8,202 feet (4,000 meters) are standing on permafrost. Temperatures in the Alps are rising at 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, the Swiss Meteorological Service recorded, while the average temperature inside the rocks has increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the European Geosciences Union revealed. 

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