Several missing after landslide in Switzerland

According to information from the Ticino cantonal police on Sunday, the accident occurred in the Fontana area of ​​the Maggia Valley. The bad weather is making rescue operations difficult. The road through the Maggia Valley is also closed and several side valleys are no longer accessible by land.

Campsites evacuated

The campsites along the Maggia were also evacuated, it said. In some of the affected areas, electricity and internet connections failed, as the newspaper “La Regione” reported online.

Rhone overflowed its banks

During the night into Sunday, storms swept across Switzerland and brought a lot of water. Flooding occurred in Ticino and Zermatt, and the Rhone in Valais overflowed its banks in several places. Flooding also occurred on the tributaries. The cantonal management body (KFO) wrote in a statement that the Rhone’s flooding had reached its highest point in the Upper Valais during the night into Sunday. It is expected to reach the Lower Valais in the morning.

Due to the situation, the Valais cantonal authorities also declared the alert level for the Rhone itself. On Saturday afternoon they had already done this for the Rhone’s tributaries.

According to the SBB, there were restrictions on rail traffic around Riddes due to flooding. According to the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn, there was also an interruption on the Visp-Andermatt route due to the risk of flooding. The federal government’s natural hazards portal warned of the risk of flooding for the Rhone from the Saltina estuary to Lake Geneva, as can be seen on the website.

Videos were also circulating on the X platform, which were supposed to show flooding in the municipality of Zermatt VS. The Federal Roads Office Astra reported on its website that the access road between Täsch and Zermatt was closed due to flooding.