Bad weather Saas Valley accessible again without restrictions

The Saas Valley VS is once again fully accessible. The road, which had been closed for six days, was reopened at around 10.00 am on Wednesday, as Stefan Luggen from the Canton of Valais Mobility Office told the Keystone-SDA news agency.

Although the reopening took place an hour earlier than announced, many vehicles were already waiting in front of the barriers, added the deputy head of the service. This meant that people wanting to drive down into the valley were crossing each other, while other vehicles were on their way up the valley, in particular to deliver goods to stores or deliver the post, explained Luggen.

Representatives from Saas Valley Tourism visited the site of the landslide on Wednesday to thank the workers and "all those who actively worked to clear the road", as the tourism organization wrote in a press release.

Thousands of tons of rock

The road between Eisten and Saas-Balen was interrupted after the landslide in the night from Wednesday to Thursday. Around 2,200 people, mainly Swiss tourists, were stranded in the valley, which was cut off from the outside world after the storms.

Several thousand tons of rock had tumbled down the mountain, as the cantonal engineer in charge, Vincent Pellissier, explained on Monday. Before the workers could work on building a temporary road, blasting work had to be carried out to clear the bed of the stream. The largest rocks, which were blasted individually, had a volume of 100 cubic meters, which corresponds to a weight of around 270 tons.

New bridge planned

The road reopened on Wednesday is still provisional. The canton is looking for a definitive solution for the bridge over the Mattwaldbach, said Luggen. According to Vincent Pellissier, it should be completed in ten months at the latest and run a little further away from the rock face in order to avoid a similar situation in the future.

An air bridge was set up to evacuate the trapped people. Since Friday, between 1,200 and 1,300 people have been able to leave the valley by helicopter, according to Simon Bumann, spokesman for the regional command staff. In addition, material and food could be delivered to the cut-off villages.

SDA