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LANDSLIDE

VIDEO: Landslide destroys houses in Swiss village

A landslide slammed into a Swiss village on Tuesday after days of heavy rain, destroying half a dozen houses but causing no injuries, media reported.

VIDEO: Landslide destroys houses in Swiss village
Heavy rains caused a landslide to hot a Glarus village. Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP

The landslide rammed into the small village of Schwanden in Switzerland’s far east at around 5:30 pm on Tuesday, the Keystone-ATS news agency reported, citing regional police in Glarus canton.

Large amounts of mud, rocks and other debris pummelled down the mountainside, wreaking havoc across 400 metres (1,300 feet), destroying or burying a half-dozen houses, it said.More earth and debris was unleashed in a second wave a few hours later.

Videos published by several Swiss media showed the thundering brown mass, ripping up trees and crushing structures, as onlookers shouted out in shock.

Police said there were no signs that anyone was injured, media reported, adding that municipal authorities had evacuated the area.

The full extent of the damage had yet to be assessed.

 “We are being evacuated. We have to leave. We have to find another place to sleep,” local Diana Ristic, 26, told the Blick daily.

Another landslide happened in the same region just a week ago, prompting the evacuation of five homes and two businesses out of safety concerns  

Since then, the evacuees had not yet been permitted to return, Glarus police spokesperson Richard Schmidt told the news agency.

Following Tuesday’s landslide, the evacuation area would be extended to likely include another 100 people, it reported.

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LANDSLIDE

Residents of Swiss village given green light to return home after landslide

Authorities say that inhabitants of a small Swiss village, which narrowly escaped being wiped off the map when part of the mountain towering above it collapsed, are now safe to return home.

Residents of Swiss village given green light to return home after landslide

The village of Brienz, near the plush ski resort of Davos in the eastern Graubunden canton, was emptied of its 84 inhabitants in May after the authorities said the Insel peak had become unstable.

A whole section of the mountain collapsed during the night of June 15 to 16, sending around 1.5 million cubic metres of rock crashing down in the darkness, stopping right at the edge of the village.

A metre-high wall of mud and rock came to a halt just in front of the school.

“52 days after the evacuation and 18 days after the big landslide, daily life can resume its course in Brienz,” the municipal authorities said in a statement Monday.

The village “is now safe again”, they said.

READ ALSO: Why residents are being ordered to leave a Swiss mountain village

An area to the north of Brienz is still off limits though, and anyone who wanders into the zone can be fined up to 5,000 Swiss francs.

The overhead airspace ban will be lifted on Tuesday.

The mountain is still being monitored by an early warning system and were it to become unstable again, the villagers and their livestock could be
evacuated once more.

The terrace on which Brienz is located is also on the move, having shifted a few centimetres per year over the last century. The slide has sharply accelerated over the past 20 years.

To slow the process down, a tunnel was dug under the village in 2021. It should drain the water and slow down the slide.

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