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LANDSLIDE

Clear-up after Swiss landslide could take ‘several years’

The inhabitants of the village of Bondo, hit by a massive landslide last week, have been told that reconstructing the village could take years, Swiss media have reported.

Published: 30 August 2017 09:24 CEST
Clear-up after Swiss landslide could take ‘several years’
The village of Bondo was swamped by the landslide. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP
Around 300 people were present at an information evening on Tuesday evening, in which the Graubünden authorities said the removal of the rock and the reconstruction of the village could take three to four years, news agencies reported on Wednesday.
 
A first step is to remove 200,000 cubic metres of rock that caused the failure of a barrier designed to to hold back a rockfall.
 
Residents may not return to live in the village until that has been done, officials told news agency ATS.
 
Anna Giacometti, the mayor of Bondo, said the Graubünden government would offer financial help to the area, with 800,000 francs already released.
 
The rockfall struck on Wednesday morning when one side of the Piz Cengalo detached from the mountain, sending a wave of mud, rock and debris into the Bondasca valley below. 
 
 
One hundred people were evacuated from the village and no inhabitants were injured, but several buildings were destroyed.
 
Eight people thought to have been hiking in the region were later reported missing – after three days the search for them was called off.
 
Around three million cubic metres of rock is now thought to have broken off the mountain – less than the four million originally cited. 
 
Nevertheless, the landslide is still deemed the largest in Switzerland for 100 years.
 
 
On Monday Bondo’s residents were allowed to return home, briefly, to collect belongings. 
 
Accompanied by police and civilian guards they were ordered to leave again by 8pm, reported 20 Minuten.
 
One local resident, Bruno Vetsch, told the paper that the tragedy was a “wound for Bondo, which will last forever”.
 
“Bondo was a very nice and quiet place,” said another, Ivana Engeler. “Now everything is different.”
 
“We must hope and pray that nothing worse happens,” she added, fearing the threat of subsequent rockfalls. “I don’t know who still wants to live in Bondo.”
 

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.

Published: 5 January 2021 16:43 CET
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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