Swiss canton allocates CHF50 million to relocate Brienz residents

Grisons parliament releases 50 million to relocate Brienz Keystone-SDA

The Swiss canton of Graubünden has released a CHF50 million loan to relocate residents from the lansdlide hit village of Brienz.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Although the risk of the plateau above the village collapsing has been averted, the money will be used to compensate residents who want to be permanently relocated.

+ Why do Swiss mountains collapse? It’s complicated

Graubünden parliamentarians from all parties see this as a gesture of solidarity. The loan requested by the government and approved on Tuesday is intended to give the people of Brienz, who have been evacuated for more than a year, some prospects for the future.

The residents concerned were able to register until the end of September for preventive rehousing: the municipality of Albula received 40 registrations, representing around a third of the village’s population. The authorities had not expected so many.

The cost of relocation is estimated at CHF55.6 million. The Confederation is expected to contribute around 35% of the costs, with a decision expected in summer 2026.

Translated from French by DeepL/mga

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail]