Cut off from the outside world Tourists wait for hours for evacuation flight in the Saas Valley

Tourists are to be flown out of the cut-off Saas Valley again on Saturday. But the waiting times are long.

The evacuation flights from the Saas Valley continued on Saturday. The airlift was set up after hundreds of tourists were stranded in Saas-Fee and the surrounding area following a landslide on Friday. No flights are planned for Sunday.

The waiting time for flights on Saturday is four hours, the municipality warned. The flight takes a few minutes and costs 140 francs per person.

Those affected also report queuing for hours in some cases. "There are a good 160 people queuing, some have been there since five in the morning," a teacher toldBlick. There is no guarantee that he will get the whole class out of the valley. "Air Zermatt obviously can't guarantee that." Air Zermatt says it is trying to take special cases into account as best it can.

Road remains closed

On Friday, 250 people were flown by helicopter from Saas-Fee to Stalden, but around one hundred could not be accommodated at the time, as the regional crisis team announced in a statement on Friday evening.

The road into the valley will remain closed after the landslide until at least the beginning of next week. According to official information, the closure affects not only the local population but also around 2,200 tourists.

SDA