Violent Swiss storms fell trees and cause flooding
Severe weather hit several regions of Switzerland on Thursday evening and overnight.
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
Violent Swiss storms fell trees and cause flooding
In canton Zurich, the fire service was called out 268 times, according to a tally posted by the Zurich emergency services on the X social media platform.
Most of the call-outs were for water flooding into buildings and fallen trees. According to the Swiss public broadcaster’s weather service SRF Meteo, more than 26,000 lightning strikes were recorded up to 11pm, and torrential rain fell intermittently.
The northern Swiss city of Winterthur saw the heaviest rainfall. Around a third of the rainfall normally recorded over the whole of July fell there in a single evening.
Due to a thunderstorm on Thursday evening, the Montreux Jazz Festival had to temporarily close and evacuate the outdoor areas, as well as the temporary structures, shortly after 8pm as a precaution. However, all activities were able to resume at 9.23pm.
Hailstones also fell in some areas, from central Switzerland as far as Winterthur.
More
Swiss storm damage more frequent and more expensive
+ How we produce English news
Translated from French, reviewed by an English Department journalist.
External Content
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.