Numerous crashes in the winter chaos 600 emergency calls in the canton of Lucerne alone - hundreds of accidents

Numerous accidents keep the emergency services on their toes after the onset of winter. Several trucks block a highway exit in Basel, and the highway in St. Gallen also has to be temporarily closed.

The onset of winter has led to hundreds of accidents in Switzerland. Numerous accidents end with minor damage.

According to the cantonal police, the main cause of the accidents was insufficient distance between vehicles and inappropriate speed. The fact that many vehicles were driving on summer tires also contributed to the accidents.

An overview of the accident statistics. (as of 11 a.m.)

Editor's note: This article is constantly being updated.

The Lucerne police have been in constant operation since yesterday afternoon. Over 600 emergency calls were received and over 30 traffic accidents were reported, according to the authorities. Several people were taken to hospital by the 144 ambulance service. According to initial findings, they suffered minor injuries.

Much of the road traffic in the canton of Lucerne came to a standstill. A number of trucks and articulated vehicles blocked lanes, especially on the highways, were parked sideways or slid off the road. Numerous cars equipped with summer tires got stuck. Various roads had to be closed for safety reasons. The breakdown and winter services were also in constant operation.

During the heavy snowfall, there were around ten road accidents in the canton of Glarus between Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. One person was injured, otherwise there was no damage to property. According to the police, traffic was gridlocked for a long time and sometimes came to a complete standstill.

A 24-year-old female driver injured her head in an accident on the Engi bypass road, as the Glarus cantonal police reported in a statement on Friday. The intoxicated woman suffered a deep cut. The car was totaled.

The majority of the accidents occurred at speeds that were not adapted to the road conditions, the police added. Two of the accidents involved cars with summer tires.

After midnight, several vehicles got stuck in the snow, the police added. In Obstalden and Schwanden, one tree each toppled due to the snow load. In Niederurnen, a car lost a wheel. However, there was no accident as a result.

Around 40 traffic accidents have occurred in the canton of Thurgau since the onset of winter on Thursday evening. Three people were injured in accidents. There were major traffic obstructions.

Numerous road users lost control of their vehicles on the snow-covered roads, according to the Thurgau cantonal police on Thursday morning. They had left the road or collided with other vehicles or objects.

In Hugeslhofen TG on Thursday evening, a 54-year-old driver had to be rescued from his car by the fire department following a collision with another vehicle. According to a police statement, his vehicle was fitted with summer tires. He and another person had to be taken to hospital with minor to moderate injuries.

A 49-year-old female driver was taken to hospital with minor injuries following a collision with a delivery van in Wängi TG on Thursday evening.

The onset of winter on Thursday led to over 120 traffic accidents in the canton of St. Gallen, excluding the city. Ten people were injured to varying degrees in seven accidents, as reported by the St. Gallen cantonal police on Friday morning.

Two dozen reported accidents were dealt with without the involvement of a police patrol, the St. Gallen cantonal police wrote in a press release. The main cause of the accidents was insufficient distance between the vehicles and inappropriate speed.

Some cars were found to be driving without winter tires. The road conditions were also difficult on Friday morning, warned the cantonal police.

There were also incidents because trees or branches could not withstand the snow and had to be removed from the roads. An overturned trailer also caused a two-hour closure of the A13 highway between Sargans and Trübbach early on Thursday evening, according to the St. Gallen cantonal police.

As a result of the heavy snowfall on Thursday afternoon, half a dozen traffic accidents had occurred in the canton of Zug by midnight. Several of the cars that skidded were on summer tires. No one was injured. Property damage amounted to several tens of thousands of francs.

As the law enforcement authorities announced on Friday, the first accident occurred at 3 p.m. in Menzingen. A driver's car skidded, hit a wall and overturned. Two hours later, in the same municipality, a driver with summer tires caused a rear-end collision with three vehicles involved.

At 5 p.m., the summer tires of two cars in Cham were also unable to cope with the wintry conditions. One car slid into the oncoming lane and into a passenger car, another crashed into the crash barriers.

In the two other accidents, cars left the road or hit traffic islands. Cars or trucks also got stuck on several stretches of road, which in turn led to traffic obstructions. The heavy snowfall also caused individual trees to fall and block roads.

The heavy snowfall put the emergency services in the canton of Basel-Stadt under considerable strain, according to the authorities. Evening traffic in particular was severely affected and the police, fire department and ambulance crews were on duty until late in the evening to deal with traffic problems and ensure the safety of the population.

The masses of snow caused considerable traffic delays on the roads of the canton in the evening. The A2 highway was particularly affected: the Wolf entrance was blocked by several trucks that could no longer make progress due to the slippery road surface.

Vehicles were only able to continue their journey after the road had been cleared and salted by NSNW AG. The City exit was also impaired after an unknown driver parked his rental vehicle at the side of the road with its hazard warning lights on. The vehicle had to be towed away. In the city, there were numerous collisions with fender benders, but no injuries were sustained.

Over the course of the day and evening, the professional fire department of the Basel-Stadt rescue service was called out to a total of 20 incidents. In 18 cases, this involved fallen trees or broken branches that were blocking roads or posed a danger. On Friedensgasse, a chimney collapsed onto the road due to the snow load, fortunately no one was injured.

Due to the snow-covered roads and traffic chaos, the paramedics and fire department sometimes had considerable difficulty in reaching the scene quickly.

The first snowfall in the lowlands also led to numerous traffic accidents and traffic obstructions on Solothurn's roads. No one was seriously injured.

The sometimes heavy snowfall, which began on Thursday afternoon, led to difficult road conditions, as the Solothurn cantonal police reported on Friday morning. Around 40 traffic accidents had been reported by this time. For the most part, these were self-inflicted accidents or collisions between two cars.

According to the information currently available to the police, one person was slightly injured and the other collisions resulted in property damage. The police accident investigation revealed that around a dozen drivers were still driving on summer tires, it was reported.

Since the snow began to fall on Thursday afternoon, around 130 traffic accidents had occurred in the canton of Bern by early Friday morning. In six cases, people were injured, but none of them seriously.

Around 30 accidents occurred on freeways, as a spokeswoman for the Bern cantonal police told the Keystone-SDA news agency on request.

Over a hundred drivers needed help when they got stuck or their vehicles broke down. In addition, around 20 reports of severe weather were received, for example due to trees that had fallen onto the road. No one was injured here either.

On Friday morning, there was also a traffic accident between a military vehicle and a touring car on the A1 East near Kirchberg. Nine occupants of the military vehicle were injured. An investigation has been launched into the circumstances of the accident.

There were many accidents on Zurich's snow-covered roads last night: the Zurich cantonal police recorded around 150 accidents in its catchment area between 6 p.m. on Thursday evening and 6 a.m. on Friday morning.

As a rule, there were only dents on the car or other material damage, as the cantonal police reported on Friday on request. Around half a dozen of the reported accidents resulted in undetermined injuries.

However, the number of accidents in the canton of Zurich will ultimately be even higher: More collisions are also likely to have occurred on Friday morning. In addition, the figures from the Zurich and Winterthur city police are still pending.

There were around ten traffic accidents on the snow-covered roads in the northern Grisons on Thursday, resulting in material damage. According to the police, there were traffic obstructions on the northern ramp of the San Bernardino route and between Tamins and Ilanz in particular due to vehicles without winter equipment.

During a braking maneuver in Sagogn, a driver left the road in his car, the cantonal police of Graubünden wrote on Friday about one of the accidents. After 30 meters, the vehicle collided with a stone in a meadow. The man was uninjured.

In the town of Schaffhausen, a car that had skidded crashed head-on into a public bus, whereupon the bus driver was taken to hospital with injuries. There were no passengers on board.

With material from the Keystone-SDA news agency.