(Geneva) The inhabitants of the small Swiss village of Brienz, in the Davos region, narrowly spared by a landslide, can finally return home, authorities announced on Monday.
A whole section of the mountain that overlooks it collapsed during the night of June 15 to 16, but the scree wall stopped at the edge of this hamlet, which had been emptied of its inhabitants for weeks.
“52 days after the evacuation and 18 days after the big landslide, daily life can resume its course in Brienz”, announced the authorities of the municipality, in a press release.
Staying in the village, located in the canton of Graubünden, about thirty kilometers from Davos and fifty from Saint-Moritz, “is now safe again”, they assured.
An area north of the village is still off limits. Failure to comply with the ban can be punished by fines of up to 5000 Swiss francs (7400 Canadian dollars).
The ban on airspace over the area will be lifted on Tuesday.
If the situation were to worsen again, a new evacuation of the 84 inhabitants of the village, their livestock and domestic animals, cannot be ruled out.
The danger could come from an area above the village: between two and four million cubic meters of rock could crumble. The mountain therefore continues to be monitored by an early warning system.
The village is also itself “in motion since the dawn of time” because the terrace on which it is located slides inexorably towards the valley, recalls the town on its site.
Over the past 100 years, Brienz has “moved” a few centimeters per year. Over the past twenty years, the shift has accelerated sharply.
To slow down the process, a tunnel has been dug under the village since 2021. It should drain the water and slow down the slide.