Evacuations have been called as a boulder teeters over a Swiss town.

A Swiss village has been ordered to evacuate due to warnings that a large mass of rock looming overhead could come tumbling down in the coming days. The head of the early warning service, Stefan Schneider, said that measurements indicated a “strong acceleration over a large area” in recent days and that up to 2 million cubic meters of rock material will collapse or slide in the coming seven to 24 days. The World Meteorological Organization’s annual State of the Climate Report found that the European Alps saw a record year for glacier melt, with Switzerland particularly badly affected, losing 6% of its glacier volume between 2021 and 2022. Rebecca Dell, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, warns that climate change is driving glacier melt in the Alps, and that if a slope becomes too unstable, events such as rockslides may occur. The village, which houses under 100 residents, is located in Switzerland’s eastern canton of Graubünden. Geological surveys suggest that the situation has become more precarious.