Spiegel: Climate change is dramatically altering the Swiss Alps, where hundreds of bodies of water are being created by melting glaciers. Though the lakes can attract tourists and even generate electricity, local residents also fear catastrophic tidal waves.
In the 1990s, the first cracks began to appear in the mighty tongue of the Trift Glacier in the central Swiss canton of Bern. In 2002, the peak of the ice mass burst into thousands of pieces. Since it lay in a hollow, the water swelled into a lake...