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LANDSLIDE

Landslide risk delays Gotthard rescue

Continuing danger of rock fall at Gotthard may mean the body of a man buried under the debris will have to be dug out by a robot.

The body of the 29-year-old worker who was buried in a landslide at the Gotthard on Tuesday was located by a specially trained dog, newspaper Tages Anzeiger reported.

Rescue teams have not yet been able to remove the body from the debris because a risk of further rock fall. An overhang of some 500 cubic metres of rock is particularly worrying, geologist Markus Hauser at rail operator SBB told the paper.

Consequently the team is considering making use of a remotely operated machine to start digging away at the fallen rock.

The accident happened on Tuesday as three men were working to secure the site from precisely this kind of incident. It is thought that the men were only a week or two away from securing the area, which had been the site of a smaller slide in March.

The piece of rock that fell measured 60 metres by 40 metres and was approximately 15 metres thick.

Workers will need to clear away as much of the debris from the top of the rock as possible in order for geologists to assess the remaining danger. The rock will then need to be cleared from across the rails.

“We have projected that all this will take at least a month,” SBB spokesman Reto Kormann told the newspaper.

In the meantime the rail line will remain closed, shutting off one of Europe’s most important transport and freight arteries.

While much of the passenger traffic can be shifted to the roads, freight transport is considerably more difficult because of the size of the loads. One transport company, Hupac, usually has between 30 and 40 trains using the Gotthard railway per day.

The accident has also re-awakened the debate concerning the controversial expansion of a second Gotthard road tunnel, having highlighted the importance of the north-south connection, Tages Anzeiger reports.

The government will decide before the summer recess how best to tackle the thorny issue of where to redirect road traffic during the expected three-year closure of the existing tunnel for renovations.

Voters in Canton Uri last May rejected the planned construction of a second road tunnel under the Gotthard massif.

A major links through the Alps, the Gotthard motorway tunnel is often clogged with holiday-makers heading south for the summer. The world’s longest rail tunnel will soon run close by, and is scheduled to open to traffic in 2017.

The outcome of the vote was hailed as a victory by the Alpine Initiative and other environmental organizations that aim to reduce road traffic in the mountains.

The groups said in a statement that train shuttles could be considered as an alternative to the second tunnel.

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LANDSLIDE

Norway rescue workers end search for landslide survivors

Norwegian rescue workers on Tuesday abandoned hope of finding survivors from a landslide that buried homes in a village six days ago, killing 10 people.

Norway rescue workers end search for landslide survivors
Photo: AFP

While three people remain unaccounted for, authorities said they are now presumed dead, bringing the official death toll from the landslide to 10, though only seven bodies have been recovered.

“We no longer have hope of finding people alive in the landslide,” Ida Melbo Øystese, police chief for Norway's eastern district, told a press briefing on Tuesday.

“Ten people have lost their lives, three are still missing,” she added.

“We have examined all the areas where it is possibly imaginable that someone has survived. We have done everything in our power,” Melbo Øystese stressed.

While no longer hoping to find survivors, the search continues for the bodies of those still missing.

Rescue workers have tackled snow and freezing temperatures in the search in and around the village of Ask about 25 kilometres northeast of Oslo.

The landslide hit in the early hours of December 30th, sweeping away nine buildings.

The seven recovered bodies, including those of a two-year-old girl, her father and her pregnant mother, were pulled out of the tangled mix of debris, earth and snow.

Rescue efforts had to be temporarily halted earlier on Tuesday when the earth began to shift again, although no one was hurt.

The landslide also left 10 people injured and more than 1,000 people from the municipality of Gjerdrum were evacuated, although some have since returned to their homes.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who went to Ask on Wednesday, said the landslide was “one of the largest” that Norway had ever experienced.

Local residents have left candles near the site of the tragedy.

The earth that shifted contains a specific clay called quick clay, present in Norway and Sweden, which can turn to fluid when overstressed.

 

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