You can fill roughly 2.5 Camp Nou stadiums with the scree that fell in Blatten.
Much more than that. Nearer 12.5!
No you are not an idiot, the 1913 tunnel is still in use with year round frequent car and truck carrying carriages through the alps. Alternate road routes require long diversions. Also the Lotschberg route from Bern to Brig is an important tourist choice.
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Of course, but not the end of the world if the link is cut for a few months.
Anyway, water hast started to flow SLOWLY through the avalanche debris. Hopefully, erosion is slow and water keeps flowing nice and calm until the new lake is empty.
The situation is finally improving.
Time to look at money matters. Wait a min, loses may be unrecoverableâŠWTAF?
Unlike many Swiss cantons, Valais does not have a public insurance system for buildings against natural hazards. Residents must voluntarily take out private fire insurance, which is mandatory under federal law to include coverage for natural hazards. In other words, everyone is free to take out private insurance or not. There is no obligation.
So, the canton managed the alerts, evacuation and is lodging people far away from the hazard. At some point, canton will clean the roads, restablish supply of water and electricityâŠ
âIts priority is to ensure the protection of human lives and to relocate disaster victims,â ââexplains Damien Locher, head of the financial unit of the Cantonal Management Body. âTo achieve these goals, the State of Valais is mobilizing the usual legal framework.â
Once these priority missions are fulfilled, the canton begins to secure the site and restore essential access. This does not mean completely clearing the site, but rather restoring vital infrastructure: roads, access paths, and connections to isolated hamlets. This work allows emergency services, experts, and affected residents to reach the affected areas.
Hopefully, everyone insured their stuff. And thereâs money available. All insurers in Switzerland contribute to a common found of 8 billion CHF that can be used in case of ânatural catastrophesâ (in French).
As for properties, are owners going to receive any help in such extreme natural events? From insurance companies/organizations? From the government?
Well, Valais doesnât have the compulsory ânatural disastersâ building insurance that is common in other cantons⊠I hope the people that have lost their homes will be have had enough coverage. This is a must in mountain areas. Otherwise I think the canton and the federation will most likely pitch in, given the level of sympathy this has raised
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Within reason of course. I wouldnât want to see an uninsured person receiving better benefits than their insured neighbours. That would send the wrong message.
Also, any mortgage requires some insurance. Losing the property but the debt still there is a nightmare. Hope insurance and banks act in good faith.
Itâs the compassion in your posts which I like the most.
You can hardly argue " play the ball, not the player", when it really is the player who is at fault here
You are sending the wrong message and itâs speaking volumes about you.
Their insurance, even if 100% in order, is never, ever going to cover the cost of putting their homes back in order. Did you not read further up the thread how many million tonnes of earth will need to be removed.
Shitty post of the year.
Well, thereâs some truth to it.
Paying insurance adds a financial burden. If in the end, it doesnât matter if you took out insurance or not because the State will make you whole either way, that defeats the purpose.
I realize itâs more complicated in Switzerland but in Germany, a lot of people who had property right next to the river in the Ahrtal didnât have enough insurance coverage (likely, the insurance companies felt the risk too highâŠ).
Also, those properties were rather cheap to have - for a reason.
But the state is apparently funding rebuilding the homes right at the same place - even though common sense says that with climate change, it wonât be long for a repeat event.
And just like in Blatten, thereâs nothing you can do when the time comes around other than pack a bag and leave (if you get enough advance warning, which thankfully usually actually works in Switzerland)
On a grand scale, this was not a surprising event. Climate change (man-made, man-supported or not - whatever you believe) will bite us in the ass more times in the future and in more ways.
As such, this was maybe just an opening salvo, a sign of things to come as more permafrost above 3000m starts to melt and the rock below it starts to crumble.
Considering the climate change, which areas in Switzerland are the safest?
So you favour the uninsured getting more than the insured? If you read carefully that is what I donât want to happen.
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As much as I am for a common, Swiss-wide mandatory insurance for (or againstâŠ) natural disasters:
The reality is probably that a lot of these people can barely afford health-insurance. Another mandatory insurance on top of that wouldnât help.
So I guess the government needs to find a new source of revenue. Soon.
In extreme cases like this, yes I am happy for it to happen. So we disagree.
Insurance is unfair anyway. Iâm subsiding the insurance of people far less deserving than the families who have lost everything in Blatten.
I donât think many people would want that to happen. It would be grossly unfair and sends out the wrong message.
Certainly these are exceptional circumstances and people have lost their homes through no fault of their own but uninsured people shouldnât get better payouts than those who were insured. The total compensation should be equal for everyone regardless of who is responsible for paying. Everyone should end up with a comparable property to the one they lost.
Ultimately the uninsured will receive more from the state (or whoever covers it) than those with insurance as the insurance companies will pay their part but overall they should all receive the same total amount of compensation, or maybe slightly less for the uninsured.
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I can see an scenario where the uninsured get more than the insured.
First, the canton Valais authorities said they will not let anyone be homeless by providing temporary housing. They also said the cantonal budget is not rebuild houses, but to rebuild road and public utilities.
The scenario is someone living for years in that âtemporary housingâ which implies getting more than the insured. But, I fail to see how this situation is âsending the wrong messageâ to the population. I donât think living several years in âtemporary housingâ is desirable at all.
Maybe, one thing at a time. First, no homelessness. From that base, thereâs time to think about the next steps.
Landslides make a lot of noise in media, but good old floods are the greatest hazard. This study by ZKB says 1/6 of residential buildings is exposed to some natural hazard but with low and medium levels, only 0.8% in high hazard zones.
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I was thinking about insurance and completely forgot about legal liability.
In this map by TAâs article from last Saturday, in red the evacuation zone, in grey the area covered by ruble, stall indicates a stable 300m outside the mandatory evacuation area where 1 person missing was allegedly located when the landslide happened.
The Valais public prosecutorâs office is now investigating the case. They confirm that the missing person is the 64-year-old farmer. Why wasnât the stable evacuated? Under what conditions was Toni allowed to see his animals? Was it his decision â or a loophole in the system? These questions must now be clarified by the investigative authority, led by Attorney General Beatrice Pilloud.
In Weissenried, a hamlet 200 meters above Blatten, some houses are reduced to rubble, while in others the pressure wave shattered the windows. The landslide surged across the Lötschental valley like a wave on the opposite side.
The public prosecutorâs investigation must also clarify whether the assessment of the natural hazards experts was correct: whether they correctly assessed the extent of the impending landslide and the size of the debris cone. The crisis management team defined the evacuation zone based on their recommendations.
This is an awful situation. Probably someone died. At the same time, hundreds were saved.
I feel a bit troubled that the cantonal public prosecutor goes after the scientists and engineers doing the forecast. Yes, there must be an investigation to make better forecasts in the future, not sure if the cantonal public prosecutor should be leading this investigation.
PS. hopefully it will not be something like 6 Italian scientists convicted of manslaughter because lâAquila earthquake (2009). They were exonerated in the end, but what it was a 16 year process.
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Would be good to have some sort of a map to know where not to buy a property when the time comes