The landslide that buried a Swiss village and riverbed is refocusing attention on the role of global warming in glacier collapses around the world.

On Wednesday, a landslide from the mountain side of Birch Glacier -- located in the Lötschental valley in northern Switzerland -- flattened homes in the Alpine town of Blatten after a large chunk of the glacier broke off, Bethan Davies, a professor of glaciology at Newcastle University in the U.K., told ABC News.

A lake of water trapped behind a mass of glacial debris that buried a village and blocked a river in southern Switzerland this week has sparked fears of flooding in the Alpine valley, even as some water eased its way through the morass on Friday.