Читать книгу The Swiss Alps онлайн

46 страница из 176

Global warming increases that process of mountain destruction, not just by the melting of snowfields and glaciers, but the permafrost too. In many places the rock is so fragmented that it is only glued together by ice. When that melts, the mountains, or large portions of them, fall down. In April 1991 a large section of the Langenflueberg collapsed into the Mattertal near Randa, demolishing the railway, blocking the river and cutting the upper valley off for several days. In the July 2003 heatwave massive rockfalls marooned 70 climbers above 3400m on the Matterhorn’s Hörnli ridge. A little under two years later 500,000 cubic metres of moraine collapsed onto the Lower Grindelwald glacier below the Fiescherwand, taking a restaurant with it. The following year an estimated 1.5 million cubic metres of rock broke away from the Eiger’s southeast flank; shortly after an impressive 50,000 cubic metre flake of rock detached itself from the east flank of the same mountain and stood precariously in the glacier gorge above Grindelwald.