Electric lights are recommended by the Swiss safety council for Christmas trees
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – An 88-year-old man and his 52-year-old son were burned on the face and hands and suffered from smoke inhalation after a candle set their Christmas tree on fire Friday evening shortly before 19:00 in Crans-sur-Celigny, in canton Vaud near Nyon.
The villa was completely destroyed. Thirty fire fighters and seven vehicles were sent to the blaze, as well as a cantonal fire inspector and an ambulance.
Candles on Christmas trees have been responsible for several fires in Switzerland in the past three weeks, causing several injuries and thousands of francs in damage .
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Reports vary from four to seven dead in the earthquake that hit eastern Turkey Thursday morning 10 November, in the area badly damaged by an earthquake 23 October. The earlier quake was 7.3 on the Richter scale; this was one 5.7. Scores of people are missing, with officials estimating 100, after two dozen buildings fell. International news agency reports indicate that at least 15 people have been pulled out alive.
AP reports that some of those missing are journalists who were staying at the Bayram Hotel, “Van’s best-known hotel. It was at least 40 years old, and had been renovated last year.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 27-vehicle pileup on the M5 motorway in Somerset, England, has killed an unknown number of people but initial reports list 5 dead, at least 43 injured. The accident occurred at 20:35 Friday 4 November at exit 25 northbound, near Taunton, with the crashes sparking a huge fireball. It appears that six trucks and at least 20 cars were involved in the huge crash.
Heavy rain earlier in the day Friday and patches of fog may have been involved in causing the accident, but police investigations have not yet clarified what caused the huge fireball.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A 27-year-old woman who in 2006 shook a child to death, has been given a 10-year-prison sentence. She is the third person involved in a child abuse case that involved her partner and his other female companion and three of the man’s children. They were all living together as a group with religious convictions, with the man dictating severe punishments that eventually led to the incident where one of the children died.
The man and his other partner were earlier sentenced to 9.5 and 7 years for their part in the string of abuses.
TSR notes that a Swiss study showed in 2008 that there had been eight deaths and 50 hospitalizations in five years for shaking babies and young children, with the public not fully aware of the damage that can be caused to a young child by shaking it.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The AFP reports today 26 July that local journalists in China are being banned from investigating a crash between two high-speed trains that killed 39 and left hundreds of people hurt.
The trains involved in the 23 July collision, were the first generation of China’s high-speed trains designed to travel at a top speed of 250 kilometres per hour.
A first train was stopped by a power outage caused by lightning, and a second train following on the same line crashed into it.
Further details: France 24 (AFP), background information on the crash GenevaLunch
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Chinese authorities say the death toll has risen to 35, with nearly 200 injured people in hospital following a crash in southeastern China between two high-speed trains, each of them carrying 1,500-2,000 people.
A first train was stopped by a power outage caused by lightning, and a second train following on the same line crashed into it. The first train was stopped on a bridge and two of its cars went over, creating major problems for rescue workers. The accident forced the suspension of 21 bullet trains in and out of Fujian Province, on a line with 30 high-speed trains a day.
Details and photos: Xinhua
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A huge blast at a Cyprus munitions dump at a naval base on the south of the island at 06:00 (local time) Monday 11 July killed at least 8 people. Some reports say 12 people have died and at least 38 were injured. It is being treated for now as an accident, reports the BBC, whose service to the Middle East was knocked out by major electricity cuts linked to the blast.
The explosion reportedly occurred after two containers of stored arms caught fire. The fire then spread to a nearby power plant, the country’s largest. Reuters reports that doors and windows were blown out at a resort 3km away.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The first group of Nigerians to be returned to their country in a year for being in Switzerland illegally was coloured by problems at Zurich Airport Thursday 7 July. Two of the group of 19 resisted and were injured by police; they were not put on the plane in the end and both were sent to cantonal prisons, according to Zurich police, who say an administrative inquiry has been opened.
The incident received heavy coverage by Swiss media Friday in part because the Federal Office for Migration, which is responsible for the flights, issued a press release saying that the flight was “without incident”. TSR reports that the office later explained the two versions of Thursdays events as an administrative communications confusion, with the Migrations press release referring only to the flight itself, since what happened earlier falls under the responsibility of Zurich police.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Three motorcyclists are in serious condition after separate accidents over the weekend, in Vaud and Valais.
Friday night 24 June at 21:45, a 20-year-old motorcyclist was passing a truck on the Chavornay-Orbe road, heading towards Orbe, when he was surprised by a car coming in the opposite direction. He managed to avoid the car but lost control of his bike and is in hospital with serious injuries after being thrown onto nearby rail tracks. The highway and railroad were closed for an hour while the accident was investigated.
A 25-year old man from the Lausanne area is in critical condition after sustaining serious leg injuries Saturday 25 June at 17:30 when he lost control of his motorcycle while passing a car on the Lausanne autoroute ring road, near the Malley exit.
The circumstances of the second accident are not yet clear and canton Vaud police are seeking witnesses or anyone with information about both accidents as well as one, below, that occurred Sunday: telephone +41 21 644 4444 or go to the nearest police station.
Sunday at 13:00, on the road between Chesières and Aigle, a Geneva car heading towards Chesières crossed the median line and hit a motorcycle coming in the opposite direction, near les Combes. The 19-year-old motorcyclist was seriously injured and taken by ambulance to the Monthey hospital, but his 23-year-old passenger, who was flown to the Chuv in Lausanne, is in critical condition.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A woman critically injured Wednesday 8 June when her car left the road near Montherod, canton Vaud, on a wide bend in the Bois Masson, died Thursday in hospital, Vaud police say. The accident occurred about 13:30 Wednesday. The car was heading from Gimel to Montherod.
The 31-year-old French woman’s passenger, a 21-year-old Swiss woman who lives in the area, was hospitalized with less serious injuries. The car left missed the bend for unknown reasons and stopped against a tree after a dozen metres. The driver had to be cut from the car by a team of 12 firefighters called in from Morges, before she was flown by helicopter to the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne, where she died a day later.
Accident early Friday critically injures young passenger without seat belt
A 22-year-old Bern man is in critical condition, say Vaud police, after the car in which he was a passenger crashed at 02:00 Friday morning 10 June near Avenches. The 21-year-old driver, who was also not wearing a seat belt, is hospitalized in Payerne with serious back and facial injuries. The car was traveling from Avenches to Salavaux at high speed and the driver failed to manage a curve to the right. The car flipped over several times and the passenger was thrown from the car. He was flown to the Hôpital de l’Ile in Bern.
The road was closed from 02:30 to 08:30 Friday morning to allow investigators to make their report.
Doctor warns youths small cut can kill
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Tribune de Geneve 5 May carries an interview with the doctor who heads the emergency room at the HUG university hospitals in Geneva, about the lethal danger of carrying knives. The interview is a followup to information published earlier by the Tribune about the growing number of youths carrying knives, and calls by lawmakers for tougher legislation.
Knives account for 40 percent of murders and 13 percent of all attacks on people, federal police statistics show, with guns involved in 5 percent of attacks.
Francois Sarrasin told the Tribune that five years ago his department treated one or two knife attack wounds a week and this has now risen to between 5 and 10. The doctor says the increase occurs mainly at the end of the week, from Thursday to Sunday, and that part of the change is linked to alcohol.
But he also points out that while carrying them has gained in popularity, there appears to be little understanding of the real danger knives represent, from pocket to paramilitary knives. Even a very small knife, and a small cut, he points out, can kill a person.
First floor tenant, “under the influence”, may have caused the fire through negligence
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A fire in Lucens that killed one young woman and injured three others may have been caused by negligence on the part of a tenant on the first floor, police in canton Vaud say.
The victim of the fire in the old town of Lucens, near Moudon, 29 April has been identified as the 22-year-old tenant of one of four apartments that caught fire in the early hours. The young woman was Swiss.
Three other people were injured, including two taken to hospital. The tenant of the first floor apartment, a 25-year-old Romanian, appeared to hospital staff to be under the influence of alcohol, according to police. An investigation into the cause of the blaze has been opened.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A fire that broke out shortly after 01:00 Thursday morning 28 April in Lucens, near Moudon, has killed one person and sent two others to hospital with serious smoke inhalation and fractures suffered when they jumped out windows to escape the fire.
The cause of the blaze, in a four-storey apartment building in the old town of Lucens, quickly spread, and several buildings wer destroyed before the fire was brought under control about 04:00. Twenty-five people were given shelter for the night by the local civil protection group.
The fire was fought by 66 firefighters, with 12 vehicles involved.
At least 8 people have died with close to 100 people reportedly injured, some very seriously, following a highly unusual sandstorm that struck the A19 autobahn near Rostock, in N. Germany, Friday. The dark wall of debris was apparently due to a mix of sand, dirt from freshly plowed fields, dry weather and high winds, and it caught motorists offguard on the four-lane highway.
Liam and Nick Bates, Swiss ski dream week team
This is the fifth in the Swiss dream ski week series, where Nick and Liam Bates, regular contributors to GenevaLunch, see how much great skiing at top Swiss resorts they can pack into one week. Be sure to check out the video at the end.
Click on images to view larger
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Davos to non-skiers is possibly best known as the place where the world’s political and business leaders meet every year to discuss the state of the world. But long before it had that reputation it was a resort with a long history, popular with skiers because of its reliably good snow.
Davos basics
The combined resorts of Davos and Klosters make up one of the largest ski areas in the Alps, with five mountains, 300km of pistes, 85 downhill runs and just about every variation on winter sports you can imagine. One of the most recent additions is a “slow slope” on Schatzalp.
Two of the mountains here stay open later in the season than many Swiss resorts: Jacobshorn until 1 May and Parsenn (Davos and Klosters) unti 25 April, whereas many resorts will be closing in Switzerland and France starting 27 March.
This is a big resort area, with a very good range of prices and types of accommodation, so it’s worth getting a bit of help from the local tourism office to plan where you’ll stay. The town has hotels for heads of state and close by you’ll find farmhouse accommodation and simple B&Bs.
The town and piste maps are well done and helpful for advance planning. If you’re planning to travel from Geneva by train, allow 5 hours 20 minutes, via Zurich, Landquart and Davos.
Nick, who spent a bit of time at the hospital, reflects on life off the slopes while Liam, who fell in love with the igloo village on the mountainside, was equally impressed by the “big, big jumps” at the snowpark.
Increase due almost entirely to pedestrians outside crosswalks
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of deaths on roads in Switzerland fell by 4 percent in 2010 but the number of pedestrian deaths was up by 27 percent, new figures from the Swiss Safety Council (bfu/bpa) show. There was little change in the number of people killed while using a crosswalk, but pedestrians killed elsewhere rose from 39 to 56.
Overall number of accidents continues to fall
Alcohol and speed factors remain high
Photo, Mr Kio on flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/igievil/
A total of 361 people died on Swiss roads in 2010. Speed is estimated to have played a role in about one-third of fatal accidents and alcohol in about one-fifth.
Another 4,508 people were seriously injured in road accidents in Switzerland in 2010. Speed may have been a factor in about one-quarter of these and alcohol in about one in seven accidents.
The number of accidents in 2010 was more than 500 lower than in 2005, with the number falling every year. The safety council attributes the decline to preventive efforts and more policing, but it says there are still far too many deaths and injuries.
Speed, crossing outside crosswalks a deadly combination
Most pedestrians are killed during busy traffic periods such as rush hour, the new annual safety council report indicates.
“Most pedestrian accidents occur while people are crossing the road, in towns, and during rush hour. A systematic reduction in speed would help reduce the number of accidents and reduce the seriousness of injuries caused by them.” Bfu/bpa notes that the percentage of deaths when cars are going 30kph is 10 percent, but this climbs to 70 percent when cars are going 50kph.
Muscovites have been shocked by the news of a suicide bomb going off at the city’s largest airport, Domodedovo International Airport, at 16:40 Monday afternoon 24 January. Authorities say a suicide bomber was among a crowd waiting at an arrivals gate, with a bomb the equivalent of 5kg of TNT. Russia’s transport minister has ordered tightening of security at all the country’s airports, effective immediately. According to state news agency Ria Novosti, “Planes from London and Brussels, as well as Greece, Ukraine and Egypt, had landed in the 30 minutes preceding the attack.” A flight from London turned around before landing, after hearing the news, but flights have begun to land again, late in the evening Moscow time.
President Dmitry Medvedev has postponed his Tuesday flight to Davos, Switzerland, where he was scheduled to speak at the World Economic Forum.
Links to other sites: Ria Novosti, for updates, Reuters
Reuters video
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two of the four Swiss ski team coaches who were involved in a car accident in Sweden Wednesday remain in hospital in stable condition, in Umea, Sweden. Curdin Fasser is in an induced coma after suffering head injuries with a slight hemorrhage and a broken left femur as well as lung problems. Steve Locher has a fractured vertebrae and pelvis, but the fracture do not involve nerve damage. The two others travelling with them suffered minor injuries and have returned to Switzerland. Few details are available about the accident.
Number of deaths in highrise fire in China put at 53; four arrested
A 15-year-old building in a poor neighbourhood in New Delhi, India, collapsed late Monday 15 November, killing 66 people and injuring at least 70 (Times of India reports 80 injured) of the 200 who are believed to have been living there. Authorities are blaming water damage to the foundation, caused by unusually heavy monsoons earlier this year, reports CNN. The building owner, Amrit Singh, has fled with his family and is being sought by police, say Indian media.
A highrise fire that killed 53 in China Monday has resulted in the arrests of four people on charges related to using unlicensed welders, according to Xinhua. Scores more were injured, of the 440 people who lived in the building, which was being renovated.
Update 22:25 Bure, Jura (GenevaLunch) – Sixteen soldiers were injured Tuesday afternoon 9 November near the military training base in Bure, Jura, near Basel. Six of them are in serious condition but their lives are not in danger, the federal military office says. The accident involved four Piranha tanks that collided for reasons that are not yet clear. Further details are not yet available, but Rega rescue helicopters have been on the site. A recruit died in the same area in 2007 in an accident involving a tank and others were seriously injured in another accident in 2008.
An investigation into the accident has been opened to determine the cause: the soldiers, including recruits, were not involved in a military exercise at the time: the tanks were moving from one area to another.
Last three cars of the Glacier Express that crashed 23 July 2010
Sion, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The 23 July 2010 accident on one of Switzerland’s most popular tourist attractions, the Glacier Express, was due entirely to the driver having an inexplicable blackout, the federal public transport specialist who has overseen the investigation told Sonntags Blick magazine.
There was no pressure on him to accelerate too soon to make up lost time, nor were there technical problems with the train or the rail line. The 34-year-old driver told his employer, the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn line, that he had a blackout at the moment he accelerated from 35 to 56 kph, against company regulations.
A Japanese tourist died when the train derailed in the Goms valley, and 42 people were injured.
Background story, GenevaLunch, 24 July 2010
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 51-year-old man died shortly after being hit by a train at the station in Wipkingen, on the outskirts of Zurich. He had just stepped off the train and fell onto the tracks for unknown reasons, then was hit by the moving train. Emergency services arrived at the scene promptly but were unable to save him. Police are looking for witnesses to the accident.
A Vevey woman was luckier last week when she was hit by a train after falling at the Vevey station, surviving the accident but sustaining serious injuries. Swiss newspaper 20 Minutes carries a story 2 November saying that she was taken to the Chuv (university hospitals) where a leg was amputated, but no one contacted her husband, despite the woman having a cell phone and identity papers on her. Her husband told the newspaper that he only learned the next day, nearly 24 hours later, why his wife had not returned home.
Rail traffic was disrupted on the Vevey-Geneva line Thursday, following the accident
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A 55-year-old Vevey woman suffered serious injuries to her legs when she tried to catch a train leaving the station in Vevey around 14:30 Thursday. The train was an Interregio, heading for Geneva Airport. The woman’s legs were reportedly caught between the rail car and the quay when she fell and the train doors closed. An investigation into the accident has been open.
Traffic on the line was delayed for an hour and a half.
A serious accident involving a teenager who had just graduated from La Chataigneraie (International School of Geneva) in 2008, following an evening out with friends, made headlines at the time, but the Vevey woman is the latest of some 20 victims of “imprudent” behaviour by rail travellers every year in Switzerland, according to the CFF. The rail company works with schools throughout the country in an annual campaign aimed at teenagers to educate them to dangers of playing around trains, railyards and the need for basic precautions around trains.
Ed. note: the youth, from the Nyon area, sustained serious injuries, but survived the accident.
Truck veers off A9 near Martigny, car flips off A1 in rush hour near Rolle
Spectacular police chase for thieves of BMW, 40 cigarette cartons on A9
Rainbow next to the A9: police caution that drivers need to remember to slow down when dry weather is followed by showers
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “Drivers need to remember to leave more distance and to reduce their speed when the roads are wet,” cautions Vaud police spokesman Philippe Jaten, in the wake of a series of accidents in the region this week. “And in particular to make sure their seat belts are fastened,” he adds. Jaten says it is difficult to say, looking at a short time, if the number of accidents is higher, but “we’ve seen some spectacular ones.”
Three serious accidents occurred in 36 hours on the A9, in Vaud and Valais, the most recent at 14:30 Tuesday at Charrat near Martigny. A truck veered off the road for unknown reasons, as the driver headed from Sion to Martigny. He had to be cut from his vehicle and was taken to hospital in Sion. Traffic was reduced to two lanes after the accident.
Slow down, leave space on rainy roads
Vaud’s rain-pelted roads this morning likely played a role in a one-car accident on the A1 autoroute at rush hour, between Aubonne and Rolle, heading towards Geneva.
Nine people were hit by lightning as they stood on a boardwalk waiting to see the geyser Old Faithful erupt, at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, in the US. Only one was hospitalized and the others were treated at a park clinic. A similar incident occurred in the same place in 2005 but park officials say the area does not get more lightning strikes than elsewhere in the park. It is, however, more crowded. The park expects to have some 3 million visitors in 2010.
Links to other sites: BBC, KBZK, Yellowstone Park
Cyclist and biker near the University of Lausanne: both need license plates for insurance coverage
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government decided Tuesday that cyclists will need bicycle licenses for 2010, so prepare to pay CHF5-10 by 1 June for your new bicycle license.
Anyone caught riding a bike without a license is subject to a CHF40 fine. The license covers riders for responsabilité civile (RC), or third party insurance, in case of an accident, for up to CHF2 million francs. Ninety-percent of the population is already covered by RC insurance, but for varying amounts.
Parliament has been debating lifting the license fee, sometimes referred to as a tax, with the centre and right parties arguing that administrative costs outstrip the revenue.
The Federal Council decided that since Parliament has not yet taken a vote on the issue, and the 2009 licenses are valid only until 31 May, the 2010 tax must now be assessed. It points out that the cost of a bicycle accident can often be very high. If, for example, an accident victim is out of work for some time due to injuries, the compensation claims can be expensive.
Preventing deaths and injuries on the roads
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Motorcyclists being stopped by the police are a sight more frequent than usual this week in Geneva, with the city’s police running a safety campaign 17-21 May, called “PréDiRe Motocyclistes”.
It is part of the larger BPU (Swiss Safety Council) national preventive campaign to cut the number of bikers’ deaths and injuries from accidents. Geneva police point out that the risk of very serious injury is 20 times higher for motorcyclists than for people traveling in cars. And while statistics are showing a drop in the number of injuries and deaths from road accidents overall, the figures have not improved for motorcycle accidents.
Motorcyclists in Geneva were involved in 783 accidents in 2009: 13.9 percent of the total number of accidents in the canton during the year. They were 27.3 percent of the fatalities, however, six of the 22 deaths from road accidents.
Human error is responsible for most motorcycle accidents, so the police campaign focuses on raising bikers’ awareness of preventive measures they can take, the risks of speed, and how to help other drivers on the road behave more responsibly towards motorcycles.
Police in Bangkok, Thailand shot rubber bullets into a convoy of red-shirt protestors Wednesday. A crowd fought back with stones , with the melee reportedly killing one soldier, who was shot in the head, although it is unclear exactly what happened. A number of people were injured, according to the Bangkok Post, which says the confrontation took place near the National Memorial, close to Don Muaeng airport, on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road.
Links to other sites: Al-jazeera, Reuters
Franky, slow down - Swiss road safety campaign
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Road Cross Foundation has gathered enough signatures for a popular vote to register their initiative that would ban repeat speeders from Swiss roads. They now have until 27 October 2010 to gather 100,000 signatures to put the initiative on the ballot. Road Cross helps victims of road accidents and their families, but it is also politically active in trying to improve preventive measures and to reduce the number of deaths and injuries on Swiss roads.
The number of fatalities has been falling in recent years but 348 people died in road accidents in 2009.
Link to the federal Road Safety Fund, which sponsors the Franky Slow Down advertising campaign
A1 Gland-Rolle accident: one seriously injured; Epalinges, Gland and Gingins deaths
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Three people have died and one is in serious condition following four separate accidents in Vaud since Tuesday. A woman in her seventies died following an accident in Gingins Saturday morning. In another accident early Sunday a 20-year-old man was airlifted to the Chuv university hospitals in serious condition after he lost control of his car on the A1 autoroute between Gland and Rolle, heading in the direction of Lausanne.
The Gingins accident occurred when the woman failed to see a vehicle coming from her right.
