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LANDSLIDE

Graubünden village faces new rockfall threat

The village of Bondo in the Val Bregaglia region of Graubünden is once more under threat of rockfalls just a few months after residents began to return home following a huge landslide that hit the village in August.

Published: 9 February 2018 09:22 CET

Graubünden village faces new rockfall threat

Bondo after last summer's landslides. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

Some four million cubic metres of rock detached from the Piz Cengalo mountain on August 23rd after a period of heavy rain, sending a wave of mud, rock and debris into the village that destroyed some properties and cut off vital services

The landslide was so severe that its vibrations were measured to be the equivalent of a 3 magnitude earthquake.

Eight hikers were presumed killed in the tragedy – their bodies were never found – and the village, though thankfully evacuated in time, was left uninhabitable until October.

Now the village is faced with the prospect of further rockfalls.

Officials from the region told the media that another large rockfall occurred on the Piz Cengalo last week, and some two million cubic metres of rock remain unstable, with at least half of that at high risk of falling in the coming days.

Torrential rain forecast for the area over the next few days, which is particularly bad news since the retention basin – built to help protect the village from rockfalls – has not yet been entirely emptied after the last landslide.

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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