At the local town hall meeting on Tuesday, the authorities ordered the residents to evacuate, stressing that no one would be allowed to stay after Friday, and mentioning the possibility of returning to check the place from time to time starting on Saturday, depending on the level of danger.
Residents most afraid for their lives packed into cars and trucks ahead of Friday’s looming deadline to evacuate the village of Brienz in eastern Switzerland, which faces an “urgent” rockslide threat, as some two million cubic meters of rock could fall on the village from the foot of the hill. Alps.
While geologists and other experts carried out research and measurements, villagers and vacationers expressed their fear of falling rocks and engulfing them in Brienz, a village of about 100 people. The Swiss authorities set it at 6 p.m. on Friday.
At the local town hall meeting on Tuesday, the authorities ordered the residents to evacuate, stressing that no one would be allowed to stay after Friday, and mentioning the possibility of returning to check the place from time to time starting on Saturday, depending on the level of danger.
The centuries-old village straddles the German-speaking parts of the eastern Graubünden region, and lies southwest of Davos at an altitude of about 1,150 metres. Local officials say the mountain and the rocks on it have been moving since the last ice age. But they issued a statement on Tuesday saying the measurements indicated “strong acceleration over a large area and up to 2 million cubic meters of rock material will collapse over the next 4 to 24 days.”
Experts estimate that there is a 60 percent chance that the rocks will fall in smaller parts, and may not reach the village or valley, and the landslide may move slowly, but there is also The probability of the collapse of the two million cubic meter block is 10 per cent, which could threaten lives, property and the village itself.
Gartman considered that the melting of glaciers affected the fragility of rocks over thousands of years, but the melting of glaciers due to “man-made” climate change in recent decades was not one of the influencing factors.
