BLATTEN, Switzerland (AP) — When a devastating landslide all but swallowed his Swiss village and toppled his three-generation family-owned hotel in May, Lukas Kalbermatten was overwhelmed by a sense of emptiness before the emotions hit. But he choose not to dwell on them long, and snapped into action to rebuild.
The hotelier's response sums up a mindset of many of the 300-odd residents of Blatten: They could have left their bucolic village in the southern Lötschental valley for dead — but instead decided to try to see it come alive again one day, and are taking steps to rebuild.
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An aerial view shows the partly flooded village of Blatten after recent snowfalls, five months after a landslide destroyed the village, Blatten, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Picture shows the partly flooded village of Blatten after recent snowfalls, five months after a landslide destroyed the village, Blatten, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Manfred Ebener talks to media near village of Blatten after recent snowfalls, five months after a landslide destroyed the village, Blatten, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
An aerial view shows the partly flooded village of Blatten after recent snowfalls, five months after a landslide destroyed the village, Blatten, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
An aerial view shows the partly flooded village of Blatten after recent snowfalls, five months after a landslide destroyed the village, Blatten, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Authorities evacuated villagers and livestock, but a 64-year-old man was killed as 9 million cubic meters of ice, stone and earth tumbled down from the Kleines Nesthorn peak on May 28. The landslide left a trail about 2½ kilometers (about 1½ miles) wide and 100 meters (about 330 feet) high in places.
It all came down in about a half-minute, coating the valley in plumes of dust. More than 90% of village homes and buildings were destroyed.
“A lot of people were emotional of course, but I didn’t get much too emotional," Kalbermatten said. "I was really realistic and the emotions, they came later after three or four days."
If the toll had been higher, locals say, many might not have wanted to return to Blatten.
Kalbermatten, whose website for his Hotel Edelweiss in Blatten shows it half-sunk in a pea soup-green pond created by the disaster, joined up with other local families to set up a temporary hotel at the summit of a gondola lift in the neighboring village of Wiler — one of three villages in the valley where most Blatten residents relocated.
“For tourism in this valley it’s also a catastrophe because we don’t have enough beds for all the tourists," he said Tuesday. “The most important for us is to do something quickly.”
Laurent Hubert, co-owner of the Nest- und Bietschhorn hotel and restaurant near Blatten, said that it was “pulverized” last May. His wife, Esther Bellwald, is spearheading the new hotel with Kalbermatten. Its website said the families of the staff were “all deeply shaken and endlessly sad” after the hotel was destroyed.
“This project is a bit of the light at the end of the tunnel,” Hubert said in knee-deep snow near the construction site, with crews in short sleeves working fast under sunny skies for a planned Dec. 18 opening of the “Momentum” hotel.
A 30-centimeter (12-inch) dump of snowfall over the weekend gave the valley its white wintertime gleam again.
In recent months, work crews have restored electricity and telecommunication lines to the Blatten area, used backhoes to dig a drainage canal, and cleared high roads that lead to Blatten, allowing for some exiled residents to briefly return to collect some belongings. Some used rowboats to access attics of inundated homes.
Others lined up to claim lost items found by cleanup crews — books, family photos, and heirlooms like a wedding dress.
Manfred Ebener, the construction coordinator in Blatten, said around 400,000 cubic meters of rock and ice remains unstable atop the mountain, making for delicate work in the warmer summer and fall months. The snowfall and cool temperatures have helped solidify the rock and ice overhead, lowering the risks, but frozen ground will make digging harder.
“The movements are declining,” he said on a hillside overlooking the snow-covered mud cone, referring to the shifting geology that set off the landslide. "We are looking at next spring with a bit of concern: The whole process will take place the other way around. When the snow melts, a lot of water gets back into the rock.”
Ebener says several years of clearing work, followed by construction of a new village, should pave the way for inhabitants of Blatten to go back by 2030. In the meantime, the villagers — and much of Switzerland — must brace for a new reality: That global warming may be leaving its trace.
Swiss glaciologists have repeatedly expressed concerns about a thaw in recent years, attributed in large part to global warming, that has accelerated the retreat of glaciers in Switzerland.
“I’m not a scientist. I can’t judge what exactly these climate changes have to do with this event," he said. “But we live here in our valley and we can see that something is happening.”
Michael Probst contributed to this report.
An aerial view shows the partly flooded village of Blatten after recent snowfalls, five months after a landslide destroyed the village, Blatten, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Picture shows the partly flooded village of Blatten after recent snowfalls, five months after a landslide destroyed the village, Blatten, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Manfred Ebener talks to media near village of Blatten after recent snowfalls, five months after a landslide destroyed the village, Blatten, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
An aerial view shows the partly flooded village of Blatten after recent snowfalls, five months after a landslide destroyed the village, Blatten, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
An aerial view shows the partly flooded village of Blatten after recent snowfalls, five months after a landslide destroyed the village, Blatten, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is delaying a massive free-trade deal with South American countries after fiery protests by farmers and last-minute opposition by France and Italy, the European Commission said Thursday.
Top EU officials had hoped to sign the EU-Mercosur in Brazil this weekend, after more than 25 years of negotiations. Instead Commission chief spokesperson Paula Pinho confirmed that the signature had been put off until January.
Experts say the delay will dent the EU’s negotiating credibility globally as it seeks to forge new trade ties amid commercial tensions with the U.S. and China.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Farmers in tractors blocked roads and set off fireworks in Brussels on Thursday outside a European Union leaders’ summit, prompting police to respond with tear gas and water cannons as protesters rallied against a major free-trade deal with South American nations.
Farmers fear an agreement with the trade bloc known as Mercosur will undercut their livelihoods, and there are broader political concerns it is driving support for the far right.
The farmers brought potatoes and eggs to throw — along with sausages and beer for nourishment — and waged a furious back-and-forth with police.
“We are fighting to defend our jobs across all European countries against Mercosur,” said Armand Chevron, a 23-year old French farmer.
Police in riot gear staffed barriers just outside the European Parliament, which evacuated some staff due to damage caused by protesters.
In Brussels, protesters burned tires and a faux wooden coffin bearing the word “Agriculture.” Their fire unleashed a black cloud that swirled with white tear gas.
“We will not die in silence,” read one sign. “The dictatorship starts here,” read another.
Hundreds of farmers like Pierre Vromann, 60, had arrived on tractors, which they parked to block roads around the key institutions of the EU.
The Mercosur deal would be “bad for farmers, bad for consumers, bad for citizens and bad for Europe,” said Vromann, who raises cattle and cereals in the nearby Belgian city of Waterloo.
Other farmers came from as far away as Spain and Poland.
The clashes between the farmers and police raged just a stone's throw from the Europa building, where leaders of the 27 EU nations discussed the trade pact as well as a proposal to seize Russian assets for use in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Italy signaled it had reservations, joining the French-led opposition to signing the massive transatlantic free-trade deal between the EU and the five active Mercosur countries — Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. The deal would progressively remove duties on almost all goods traded between the two blocs over the next 15 years.
French President Emmanuel Macron dug in against the Mercosur deal as he arrived for Thursday’s EU summit, pushing for further concessions and more discussions in January. He said he has been in discussions with Italian, Polish, Belgian, Austrian and Irish colleagues among others about delaying it.
“Farmers already face an enormous amount of challenges,″ he said, as farmer protests roil regions around France. “We cannot sacrifice them on this accord.”
Worried by a surging far right that rallies support by criticizing the deal, Macron's government has demanded safeguards to monitor and stop large economic disruption in the EU, increased regulations in the Mercosur nations like pesticide restrictions, and more inspections of imports at EU ports.
Premier Giorgia Meloni told the Italian Parliament on Wednesday that signing the agreement in the coming days “would be premature.”
“This doesn’t mean that Italy intends to block or oppose (the deal), but that it intends to approve the agreement only when it includes adequate reciprocal guarantees for our agricultural sector,” Meloni said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is determined to sign the agreement, but she needs the backing of at least two-thirds of EU nations.
Italy’s opposition would give France enough votes to veto von der Leyen’s signature.
In Greece, farmers have set up roadblocks along highways across the country for weeks, protesting delays in agricultural subsidy payments as well as high production costs and low product prices that they say are strangling their sector and making it impossible to make ends meet.
The accord has been under negotiation for 25 years. Once ratified, it would cover a market of 780 million people and a quarter of the globe’s gross domestic product. Supporters say it would offer a clear alternative to Beijing's export-controls and Washington's tariff blitzkrieg, while detractors say it will undermine both environmental regulations and the EU's iconic agricultural sector.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said ahead of the Brussels summit that the EU's global status would be dented by a delay or scrapping of the deal.
“If the European Union wants to remain credible in global trade policy, then decisions must be made now,” Merz said.
The deal is also about strategic competition between Western nations and China over Latin America, said Agathe Demarais, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “A failure to sign the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement risks pushing Latin American economies closer to Beijing’s orbit,” she said.
Von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa are scheduled to sign the deal in Brazil on Saturday.
The political tensions that have marked Mercosur in recent years — especially between Argentina’s far-right President Javier Milei and Brazil’s center-left Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the bloc’s two main partners — have not deterred South American leaders from pursuing an alliance with Europe that will benefit their agricultural sectors.
Lula has been one of the most fervent promoters of the agreement. As host of the upcoming summit, the Brazilian president is betting on closing the deal Saturday and scoring a major diplomatic achievement ahead of next year’s general elections, in which he will seek reelection. He said he was surprised by Italy’s hesitancy, and had spoken about it directly with Meloni.
At a cabinet meeting Wednesday, Lula was clearly irked by Italy and France's positions. He said that Saturday would be a make-or-break moment for the deal.
“If we don't do it now, Brazil won't make any more agreements while I'm president,” Lula said, adding that the agreement would “defend multilateralism” as Trump pursues unilateralism.
Milei, a close ideological ally of Trump, also supports the deal.
“We must stop thinking of Mercosur as a shield that protects us from the world and start thinking of it as a spear that allows us to effectively penetrate global markets,” he said some time ago.
Associated Press writers Debora Rey in Buenos Aires, Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Elene Becatoros in Athens, Gabriela Sá Pessoa in Sao Paolo, and Sylvain Plazy and Angela Charlton in Brussels contributed to this report.
A protestor sits on a curb injured during a demonstration of European farmers near the European Parliament in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)
Police try to disperse protestors during a demonstration of European farmers near the European Parliament in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)
A protestor picks up tire to throw onto a fire during a demonstration of European farmers outside the EU Summit meeting in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)
Protestors burn tires during a demonstration of European farmers outside the EU Summit meeting in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks with the media as he arrives for the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
A fire burns in a barrel as European farmers block a road with their tractors during a demonstration outside the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)
Police stand behind a barrier as European farmers block a road with their tractors during a demonstration outside the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks with the media as she arrives for the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
A farmer drives a tractor with a sign that reads in Dutch 'Don't forget, without farmers there's no food' during a demonstration outside a gathering of European leaders at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)
Farmers drive their tractors to block a main boulevard during a demonstration outside a gathering of European leaders at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Marius Burgelman)
A farmer puts wood in a fire during a demonstration outside the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
Protestors and farmers stand next to a wood fire during a demonstration outside the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
Farmers use their tractors to block a main road during a demonstration outside a gathering of European leaders at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
