It concluded that the about 3,500 tonnes of ammunition and several hundred tonnes of explosives stored at an underground site of Mitholz in the Bernese Oberland are a bigger danger than previously assumed.
The defence ministry said it was reassuring to read the findings of the report that was commissioned by the ministry while it reinforced monitoring of the stockpile with video and thermal cameras as well as gas detectors.
It also set up an expert panel to study possible scenarios to eliminate or reduce the risk of explosion.
The local population has called for the site from the Second World War to be cleared.
The Mitholz site was the scene of a tragedy in 1947, when the depot, which consisted of six rooms under a mountain connected by a trans-alpine railway tunnel, exploded and killed nine people.
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No clearance of former munitions stockpile in sight
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In July 2018, residents of the mountain village were shocked to find out that an ammunition storage site that had exploded 70 years earlier, could still present a danger to the public. The people who live here feel that action isn’t being taken quickly enough, and they’re worried about the future. (SRF/swissinfo.ch)
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The ministry’s latest environmental impact survey drew the same conclusions as predecessors in 2008 and 2012 – namely that the munitions were not leaking and the water contained toxins of such minute levels that the water is safe to drink. In 2012, it concluded that it is better to leave the munitions where they are…
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