Geologists rule out major landslide above Swiss village

GR: Brienz, geologists rule out major collapse of 'Plateau Ost' Keystone-SDA

The village of Brienz/Brinzauls is no longer threatened by a landslide from the area known as Plateau Ost.

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This was announced today by the municipality of Albula/Alvra, to which the evacuated village belongs. However, it is not yet clear whether the village is out of danger.

The Municipal Conduct Staff wrote in today’s bulletin that the area at the top of the slope has been increasingly crumbling and has collapsed onto the debris pile below. Until yesterday, movements of up to five metres per hour had been measured in this area. Early this morning, the speed decreased considerably.

But the debris is moving slowly in the form of a slow debris flow towards the village. The distance to the northern edge of the village this morning was about 400 metres.

“We hope that the debris mass will stop in front of the village,” Christian Gartmann, communications manager of the Albula/Alvra municipality, told Keystone-ATS this afternoon. The mass of debris has joined the 1.7 million cubic metres of material that collapsed in 2023, the municipality of Albula/Alvra announced.

At the moment, officials are not yet able to estimate how fast the debris flow is moving towards the village. In 2023, the debris mass had stopped about 50 metres from the village.

Acceleration overnight

Last night there was an abrupt acceleration at the top of the slope: “At the beginning of last week, the Plateau Ost started to accelerate from 10 to 40-60 centimetres per day, and then the development was exponential,” Gartmann told Keystone-ATS yesterday.

The fact that the eastern plateau has now fragmented is in itself fortunate. However, it is still unclear what the latest developments mean for residents who have been evacuated for over a year.

The municipal authorities have again stressed that there is no danger to the cantonal roads and the railway line.

Translated from Italian by DeepL/mga

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