Dramatic footage captured in June shows millions of cubic meters of rock rumbling down a steep mountain landscape, as one of the summits of the Fluchthorn, a mountain in the Silvretta Alps, collapses.
Experts associate the incident with global warming, which is causing frozen soil instability. As a result of the collapse, the mountain got 100.5 meters shorter, with debris collapsing into the valley.
Most mountain peaks above 2,400 meters are covered in permafrost, making them stable. However, as soon as the ice melts, the peaks begin to collapse. Climate change is causing an alarming rate of warming in the Alps, and glaciers are rapidly disappearing.
According to Jan-Christoph Otto, a geologist at the University of Salzburg, this peak has been frozen for probably thousands of years, and the failure at Fluchthorn is most likely the result of extreme temperatures last summer or fall.