Screenshot from the video of the glacier collapsing.
Screenshot from the video of the glacier collapsing.
Photographer Juergen Merz captured the moment of a lifetime last week in Switzerland.

Check out Merz's footage of a huge section of the Tschierva Glacier violently collapsing to the valley floor below:


Juergen Merz:
"Yesterday I witnessed how a huge part of a hanging glacier of the Tschiervaglacier in Switzerland collapsed. While I was filming the leftovers from a smaller avalanche suddenly a huge piece broke of and created this avalanche. It shows the raw power of nature."
The amount of energy released in that slide/collapse is breathtaking.

The Tschierva Glacier rests on Piz Tschierva, a 11,634 ft. mountain in the Bernina Range of the Swiss Alps. The glacier has melted significantly over the last 50 years.

The glacier had a surface area of 6.2 square kilometers in 1973. It currently has a surface area of about 3.9 square kilometers.

The Tschierva is one of 1,400 glaciers in Switzerland.