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Construction platform fished from river Rhine

A 40-tonne construction platform that broke free of its moorings and drifted down the river Rhine on Wednesday is back on dry land.

Published: 14 August 2014 11:54 CEST
Construction platform fished from river Rhine
The platform broke adrift amid heavy rain. Photo: cantonal police

An operation to rescue the drifting platform, carrying construction machinery including a digger, was successfully carried out on Thursday morning.

Boats towed the platform to the industrial port of Hard.

The platform broke free near Chur in the east of Switzerland following days of exceptionally heavy rain.

The 20 Minuten online newspaper quoted a spokeswoman for Graubünden cantonal police as saying the platform belonging to a construction firm was 15 metres long and nine metres wide.

It could not be stopped because of the unusual force of the Rhine. The platform headed north from Chur towards Lake Constance, which Switzerland shares with Germany and Austria.

It reached the mouth of the Rhine on Wednesday evening and ran aground, impeding rescue efforts.

Graubünden police, Swiss and Austrian helicopters and a team from the construction company followed the platform’s progress.

As it was swept along by the fast current the platform hit a number of bridge pillars in Swiss and Austrian waters, shedding some of its load, cantonal police said.

The construction firm has begun disassembling the platform. 

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WEATHER

IN PICTURES: ‘Exceptional’ Sahara dust cloud hits Europe

An "exceptional" dust cloud from the Sahara is choking parts of Europe, the continent's climate monitor said on Monday, causing poor air quality and coating windows and cars in grime.

Published: 8 April 2024 14:15 CEST
IN PICTURES: 'Exceptional' Sahara dust cloud hits Europe

Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said the latest plume, the third of its kind in recent weeks, was bringing hazy conditions to southern Europe and would sweep northward as far as Scandinavia.

Mark Parrington, senior scientist at Copernicus, said the latest event was related to a weather pattern that has brought warmer weather to parts of Europe in recent days.

“While it is not unusual for Saharan dust plumes to reach Europe, there has been an increase in the intensity and frequency of such episodes in recent years, which could be potentially attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation patterns,” he said.

This latest episode has caused air quality to deteriorate in several countries, Copernicus said.

The European Union’s safe threshold for concentrations of PM10 — coarser particles like sand and dust that that can irritate the nose and throat — has already been exceeded in some locations.

A picture taken on April 8, 2024 shows a rapeseed field under thick sand dust blown in from the Sahara, giving the sky a yellowish appearance near Daillens, western Switzerland. – An “exceptional” dust cloud from the Sahara is choking parts of Europe, the continent’s climate monitor said, causing poor air quality and coating windows and cars in grime. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

The worst affected was the Iberian Peninsula in Spain but lesser air pollution spikes were also recorded in parts of Switzerland, France and Germany.

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Local authorities in southeastern and southern France announced that the air pollution threshold was breached on Saturday.

They advised residents to avoid intense physical activity, particularly those with heart or respiratory problems.

The dust outbreak was expected to reach Sweden, Finland and northwest Russia before ending on Tuesday with a shift in weather patterns, Copernicus said.

The Sahara emits between 60 and 200 million tonnes of fine dust every year, which can travel thousands of kilometres (miles), carried by winds and certain meteorological conditions.

The Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of northwest Africa saw just 12 days within a 90-day period from December to February where skies were free of Saharan dust, the local weather agency Aemet had reported.

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