LANDSLIPS IN SWITZERLAND.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10580, 8 October 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

LANDSLIPS IN SWITZERLAND.

The terrible Swiss floods have brought about many landslips and caused the expectation of more, in many eases, indeed, villages have been evacuated for fear lest they should bo overwhelmed, and that has notably been done in the case of certain villages on tho slopes of the Rossberg, near Lucerne, a mountain already famous as tho sceho of one of tho most disastrous landslips in Swiss history. ''

It was a. landslip, in fact, on so immense a scale that many of the accounts of it speak of tho mountain itself as falling, and though it happened as long ago as 1806- one is stiu perpetually invited to read about it in' those popular almanacs in which the, Swiss keep alive the memory of tho most sensational occurrences in their annals. The equilibrium of tho mountain, it seems, had long seemed unstable and a wet summer, audi as Clio present one in Switzerland, brought tho climax. A huge slice on the- side of the. mountain slid away, tho place-' from which it fell being found to be a thousand feet in depth by a hundred, feet in breadth. As it tell tiie 'mass spread itseii' out till it way ...- _i ;i--t----tl'ireo miles in length. : ~ It shot across the valley with tho swiftness of a cannon ball and the yil-. lages in its path were cracked up like eggshells. The portion of it which reached the little lake of Lowcrtz, about live miles away, raised a wavo 7;.''.t high, which washed out the ham--1.1..; on the banks. Other rocks were Hung high up the slopes of the Rigi, and mowed down tho trees like chain shot. Tho total number of people who perished in tho disaster is given at 457. Similar and hardly less disastrous was tho comparatively recent landslnp at Elm in the Canton Glarus, though there tho hand of man helped nature to bring about the mischief. The I'lattenbergkopf above tho valley contained a bed of slate. Concession was granted for working it and the concessionaries worked recklessly, practically undermining the mountain. '•-...

Presently, in 1879, a great fissnro was. ; seen in, it' behind the top of the hill. This crack- got longer and wider, all tho surface drainage fib wing into it, and its effect being, as it weri.:, to cut the crown of the mountain off. By. tho end of August, 1881, the crack was more than four metres wide. On September 7 rocks began breaking oil and rolling down tho hill, and work m the quarry.' was suspended On September 10 certain men described as experts examined tho mountain and reported that there was no immediate danger and no noed for the villagers- to quit their homes, and on the following day events gave tho expeits the lie. Tho crown of'the mountain came off in three pieces, causing thieq scp.uato landslips.. The hi si 1011, which occurred just aitei o o'clock in tho morning, did no JwiMi, but i lightened tho villagers into i dttcimn.atioii to pack and , depart. Tii \ to pack at their, leisure; but .in mterval'of 17 minutes, tho second fall took place, knocking over five houses, including tho village inn, and killing 20 people. Those who escaped ran for their lives .until they imagined that they had reached a placo of safety. Then camo tho .third fall—tho greatest of all —overtaking them even in their refuge. The wind that the landslide drove before it blew trees about like matches and lifted houses into the air like feathers. It flowed like n liquid, spreading ilaclf out as it went, until it had travelled a dit/tauco of 1000 meters and covered an, area oi about 900,000 square metre* to a depth of ■from ten to twenty meters. Coming to tho lower \ illagc, which was believed to bo sccuro against all Eossibilities of danger it bisected it, .urying one' half and leaving the other half untouched, everybody in one half of tho villago being saved and everybody in'the other being killed. In oito case, a peasant, -witnessing the catastrophe from a distance, hurried down to seo whether his house still stood and , how his family had rami. Tho house' indeed remained. .Tho tino:- wan -ojun, tho fire blazing, tho table laid, the -coffee hoi. in the coffeepot, bntthrtc was no living soul within. \> iff, daughter,-! son, - son'o-wife, and-two grandchildren, all had run out ■ in* thoir alarm and getting right into tho track of the rock avalanche which they were trying to escape'from, had been knock-; ed down and buried l by ■ i!: • -' > v