Nyon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A French driver in his 30s is in serious condition at the Chuv (University Hospitals) in Lausanne, reports the Tribune de Geneve, following an early morning head-on collision near La Givrine, in the Jura mountains above St Cergue. The driver was passing other cars at 06:45 on the snowy road that links France and Switzerland but the line of cars on his side of the two-lane road was too tight for him to get back in line. The other driver, also French and in his 40s according to the paper, suffered rib and hand injuries. La Givrine is some 16 km above Nyon.
Geneva police looking for hit-run driver near UN Monday evening
Home robberies in canton Vaud, first week of November 2010: total number 100
Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in Geneva are warning the public to be on the alert for the first of holiday season charity scams. Several complaints have been filed with police against individuals collecting money for an organization, “Le respect, ça change la vie”, using copies of the group’s logo. The people collecting money have nothing to do with the charitable organization and are taking money under false pretenses.
Leave a light on at home
Vaud police, who report 100 home robberies for the first week of November, higher than the October average, are alerting people to leave a light on somewhere in their house or apartment. Dusk comes earlier and many homes are dark before people return home from work.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A fight broke out about 10:30 Sunday morning 7 November between Georgians and Africans at the Lagnon refugee residential centre on the route des Blanchards in Onex.
The two groups battled with scissors, knives and metal bars, injuring 11 people, 7 of whom were sent to hospital emergency rooms for treatment. At least one is reported to be in serious condition.
Police in Geneva say the cause of the fight is not yet known. Nine police patrols, a medical unit of 16 people and six ambulances were called to end the fight and treat the injured.
More than 140 people were injured Sunday 10 October when protesters attacked police trying to allow the Serbia’s second Gay Pride march to go ahead, in Belgrade. Molotov cocktails and rocks were thrown at police, with 124 police officers injured. Serbia has put in a bid to join the European Union and politicians in Serbia who support the bid were concerned late Sunday that the riot would mar that effort. Scores were arrested.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, New Zealand Herald
Olympic downhill champion Didier Defago
Sion, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss skier and Olympic downhill champion Didier Defago will likely be out for the season, after tearing a knee ligament during a fall in training in Zermatt Wednesday 15 September.
The 32-year-old skier will be operated on Saturday at the Hopital de la Tour in Geneva by the ski team’s head doctor, Oliver Siegrist.
One person died in the crash of a Colombian airliner that was carrying 131 people, but 124 are injured, with several of them in critical condition. The plane was split in two as it landed on San Andres island at 01:42 Monday morning 16 August. Bad weather was listed as the cause by some officials, while others reported that the plane was hit by lightning.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – A 20-year-old driver veered into the scene of an accident in Lausanne in the early hours of Thursday, hitting a police car, one police officer standing at the back of the car, and three passengers from a car that had had an accident an hour earlier. All five ended up at the Chuv university hospitals with serious injuries.
The first accident occured at 01:20, when the driver of a car became drowsy and drove off the A1 autoroute between the Maladiere and Malley exits, and up a bank. The car was heading towards Lausanne. No one was injured. At 02:30, while police were investigating the accident and making their report, their vehicle parked in the emergency lane with lights flashing and accident signs out to warn motorists, the driver of the second car drove off the road and into the police car.
The Glacier Express is one of Switzerland's most popular tourist attractions
[Video] Geneva and Sion, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – One person is dead and 42 are injured, in a train crash in the Goms Valley Friday 23 July around noon.
Six of the injured are in critical condition and another six in serious condition, treated in Geneva and Lausanne as well as in regional hospitals. Most of victims are Japanese. Details are still coming in from cantonal police, but Kyodo News in Japan reports that the tourists were part of three different tour groups and most if not all were over age 50 and on one-week tours to Switzerland.
The Glacier Express, which links Zermatt to Andermatten, went off the rails between Lax and Fiesch, heading towards Oberwald.
According to a police spokesperson for canton Valais, the last two cars of the train, which were turned over on their side, were first class cars and could hold up to 30 passengers each. The train may have carried up to 210 people. (photos, TSR, by Keystone)
No cause has been given yet for the crash. The train is owned by 
the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn (MGB).
Heavy rains, thunderstorms and fog rolled through the area late Thursday and early Friday, but by early afternoon, with rescue work continuing in the area, skies were starting to clear.
The accident occurred not far from the place where a tourist bus crashed 13 June 2010, killing two Canadians and injuring 28.
Serious rail accidents with mortalities are extremely rare in Switzerland and the Friday accident “interrupts a long record” without deaths reports TSR; the most serious one was 112 years ago.
Video of the train crash – Swiss Television SF Video
A long unemployed man in his 40s attacked a group of four-year-olds in a kindergarten in eastern China, critically injuring two of them and wounding 24 others and three adults before police could stop the attack, reportedly thanks to a milkman hitting the attacker over the head with a mop handle.
The attack in Taixing, Jiangsu province, comes just a day after a 33-year-old man with a history of severe mental problems attacked a school in Guangdong province, injuring a teacher and 16 young children. Five of the chidren in Guangdong are in critical condition.
Suicide bombers triggered explosions in two crowded Metro subways in Moscow early Monday 29 March. The death toll currently stands at 37, with 33 people injured. The first went off about 08:00 at Lubyanka station, during rush hour, and the second 40 minutes later at Park Kultury station. “No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blasts but suspicion was likely to fall on groups from the North Caucasus, where the Kremlin is fighting a growing Islamist insurgency,” reports the Moscow Times.
Police were saying late morning in Moscow that female terrorists are suspected to have carried the bombs, according to Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
Links to other sites: Moscow Times, Ria Novosti
Lyss, canton Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Twenty-six people were injured in Lyss, canton Bern, after a fire broke out in the early hours of Thursday 25 February at a centre for asylum seekers. Cantonal police say there is no reason at this stage of the investigation to suspect criminal activity. The fire broke out shortly after 04:00, waking residents of the centre. Many of them appear to have panicked and jumped out of windows rather than taking the emergency exits, which were open. Several of the injured suffered pelvic fractures from hitting the hard ground when they jumped.
The center has a population of 135 people from 30 countries.
Links to other sites: ats/romandie (Fre), Bern police (Fre)
The death toll has now risen to 160 persons killed by a series of avalanches that swept over a busy road in the north of Afghanistan Monday. Officials say they have now dug 160 bodies out of the snow. Nearly 90 people are reported to be injured, and rescuers have freed more than 2,600 people stranded when the road was blocked by the heavy snow. Rescue operations continue along the Salang Pass, with military helicopters dropping food packages to people who are still unable to get out.
A massive avalanche in Salang, a nearly 4,000 metre pass connecting Kabul and the north of Afghanistan, has killed at least 15 and possibly up to 30, with some 70 people reported by the Defense Ministry to be injured. Official and local reports vary widely. The road along the pass is heavily traveled and 1,500 people stranded by the avalanche have been rescued despite additional smaller avalanches and heavy snow, which have hampered rescue operations.
Links to other sites: News.com.au, Australia, MSNBC
Fully, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 21-year-old driver injured two other young people, ages 17 and 20, hitting them when they were using a crosswalk after leaving a bus in the centre of Fully. The two were taken to the hospital in Sion, say police.
Verbier, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - 20 Minutes reports that a 44-year-old Geneva man and his son were freeriding in Verbier, at Bec des Rosses, following the Xtreme competition trail, when the father fell into a gully and slid 600 metres Sunday 17 January. The newspaper says the man’s life is not in danger but that he suffered multiple serious injuries. The report has not been confirmed by Valais police.
St Louis, Missouri, USA (GenevaLunch) - A gunman killed three people and injured at least five others, three of them critically, at the offices of Swiss-Swedish multinational ABB in St Louis Thursday 7 January, according to police reports. The man entered the factory at 06:30. ABB was unable to give details or confirm more than the police information to wire services, at 19:35 Swiss time, saying the situation was still unclear. Initial media reports in the US indicate that the gunman was among those killed, and that he was a former employee who was in litigation with the company, but none of this has been confirmed officially.
Links to other sites: ABB, CNN, ats/Romandie (Fre)
Update 23:25 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Four people were killed by avalanches Sunday 3 January, two near Diemtigtal, canton Bern and one in Bagnes, Valais. Seven others were injured, some of them critically, in Bern and one other person was hospitalized following the Valais avalanche. In a separate incident, Valais police have reportedly arrested three young snowboarders who appear to have set off an avalanche near Zermatt Thursday 30 December that caught a group of seven, including five children.
The deadly accident in Bern occurred in an area that is not considered particularly at risk, although the Swiss avalanche and snow research institute has had level 3 “considerable danger” warnings out for much of the Swiss Alps during the past week. One member of a group of ski tourers was caught by a first avalanche at about 11:30 Sunday, and emergency services were immediately called. While the rescue operation was underway a second avalanche occurred. A Rega helicopter service doctor and one other skier were found and taken to hospital, where they died. Another skier was dead when uncovered. Eight people were found alive, but some of them are in critical condition Sunday night, according to Bern police. Eight helicopters were used in the rescue operation, to carry rescue teams, doctors and avalanche search dogs to the area.
The search was called off at 18:00 due to weather and snow conditions. Police in Bern ask that anyone waiting for news of ski tourers in the area phone them at +41 31 634 3434.
The other avalanche Sunday occurred near the Tête de la Payanne, in the Val de Bagnes region near Verbier, in Valais, about 14:00.
Finn, 7 December, swimming again (photo: ©2009 BaerenPark)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Finn, the four-year-old bear at Bern’s bear park that attacked a mentally handicapped man who slipped into his cage in pursuit of a plastic bag, is recovering well from a bullet wound. Finn was shot 25 November by a police officer to force him to let go of the man.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was badly scratched and hit in the face by a man wielding a small souvenir replica of Milan’s cathedral, Sunday 13 December in Milan, although it’s unclear if the man threw it or hit Berlusconi with it. The prime minister is receiving 24 hours of treatment and observation in a hospital but is expected to leave late Monday. The hospital has issued a statement saying he has a slight nose fracture and two broken teeth. The man who accosted him while he was signing autographs has a history of psychiatric problems.
Update 24 November 07:50 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Police continue to investigate the accident that put a 70-year-old man in hospital in serious condition Thursday 19 November after his Golf was hit by a Lamborghini Murcielago in Genthod, on the lake road. The driver was a 22-year-old Russian with an alcohol level of 1.11 per 1,000 (legal limit in Switzerland is 0.5), with a drivers license that is not valid in Switzerland. The car had Geneva plates. The Tribune de Geneve carries a front page story about the accident, suggesting that it was the result of a race or chase by four flash cars whose owners were trying to see which car is the fastest, a suggestion that other media have carried.
Geneva police spokesperson Patrick Pulh told GenevaLunch that police have not, in fact, been able to establish if there was any kind of race. “These cars make a lot of noise even when they are just idling.” he notes. “We haven’t been able to establish the speed at which they were going.” The ongoing investigation is seeking to clarify the roles of all the drivers involved, he says, and it’s difficult at this stage to say how long it will take.
Basel and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two young men, ages 20 and 23, are in critical condition following attacks, one in Basel and the other in Zurich, in the early hours of Sunday. In addition, police in Zurich report a series of violent incidents, only some of which appear to be possibly related. Several people were injured in the string of aggressive incidents, at a level not often seen in Switzerland.
A Dutch man, 38, drove his car into the Queen’s Day parade in east Amsterdam Thursday 30 April killing 5 people and wounding 12 others, say Dutch officials. The car missed his intended target, the bus carrying the queen and royal family, and crashed into a stone monument several meters away. The driver was injured in the crash and has been detained. The government cancelled the remaining official activities for the day. Financial Times
The Italian government now says that 207 bodies have been found and another 50 people are reported missing, but 1,500 are injured and 17,000 are homeless after the earthquake that hit Aquila in the early hours of Monday. Reuters
