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Remembering a Swiss storm’s scenes of destruction

The summer of 30 years ago in Switzerland was marked by extremely heavy rains, which led to flooding and land and rockslides – cutting railway lines and destroying parts of villages.

Central Switzerland, particularly canton Uri, was hardest hit, with large parts cut off from the outside world.

Many storm and flood prevention measures were introduced following the natural disasters of 1987, but Switzerland would suffer again from severe weather events, including what were called the floods of the century in 2005 and 2011. 

The eastern Swiss town of Bondo, hit by a landslide on Wednesday, was one of those that had put in place anti-flooding measures which protected the town from more damages.

All pictures are from the Keystone photo agency.


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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR