Storm Saas-Grund expects damage of up to one hundred million francs

The damage in the Upper Valais village of Saas-Grund alone, which was hit by the storm, amounts to between fifty and one hundred million francs, according to estimates by the mayor Bruno Ruppen. The clean-up work is likely to take months.

The damage mainly affects buildings and the road infrastructure, as Ruppen told the Keystone-SDA news agency. The drinking water network and sewage system were not affected, and around eighty percent of the municipality had access to the electricity grid.

Late on Saturday evening, the Triftbach stream burst its banks and piled up around one hundred thousand cubic meters of rubble in the village within a few minutes, which, according to Ruppen, is the equivalent of ten thousand full trucks.

"We have already cleared away thousands of cubic meters and pumped the water out of the houses and cellars. We've made good progress, but we're far from finished, it will still take months," said Ruppen.

Around one hundred helpers have been on site since Sunday. Since Wednesday (today), members of the army have also been deployed with heavy equipment.

The help of the army cannot come quickly enough in such cases, said Ruppen. This is because the tourist season begins in the Valais village around July 10. While the village normally has around 3200 inhabitants, during the season there are between 12,000 and 13,000 people in the village.

Saas-Grund had already been caught out by a similar storm in 1993: Back then, the Vispa burst its banks, this time it was the Triftbach. A project to secure the Triftbach has been under discussion for "seven or eight years", Ruppen continued.

According to Ruppen, the planned project, estimated at around eleven million Swiss francs, would have "greatly limited" the current damage. He assumes that the realization of this project will take around five years and hopes that the most recent event will provide a little more impetus for the realization of the safety project.

SDA