A glacier lake that threatened to burst its banks and swamp villages in the Bernese Oberland is draining slowly, though there is still a risk of a sudden flood.
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The lake near Grindelwald is swollen with melted snow. The glacier moraine holding the water back is crumbling. Authorities worried if a large chunk of the rock dam suddenly gave way, villages along the Lütschine river would be inundated.
On Saturday officials said portions of the moraine had indeed crumbled but more slowly than expected. The lake had grown to 1.8 million cubic metres of water with pockets of melted snow trapped beneath glacier ice.
Authorities are still monitoring the situation closely. Scientists could not say how much water had been released because the moraine shifted and caused large waves that destroyed their measuring gauges.
The A8 motorway near Interlaken has been reopened. Officials had closed it on Friday as a precaution.
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Guides led a group of prominent and not so prominent people to the summits of various peaks as the association’s contribution to International Year of Mountains. The goal of the mountain guides was to put their profession in the spotlight, but more importantly to raise awareness of the importance of mountain regions. To spread the…
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Professor Paolo Burlando, of Zurich’s Federal Institute of Technology, said the country’s flood-alert system must be better coordinated in future, after thousands were caught unawares by last week’s flooding. Other countries, including Japan, already have hi-tech systems in place to predict floods and warn people in time to evacuate. The Swiss model can be improved,…
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Heavy rainfall and flooding in Bern as well as east and central Switzerland in August 2005 caused heavy damage amounting to SFr2.5 billion.
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