SCHAFFHOUSE, SWITZERLAND – A 38-year-old man is in critical condition after being “brutally” knocked to the ground Sunday evening 1 April at the train station in Schaffhouse, reports news agency ats. The man had attempted to stop a group of youths who were hassling a cleaning woman.
Spring at the beach in Perroy Thursday: time out to admire the Alps
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – This is our last official report for the season, with flowers coming out and trees budding on the Swiss plains.
It doesn’t mean, of course, that you have to stop skiing, and if we spot anything of special interest, we’ll post it on GenevaLunch. See details below for the big x-treme event in Verbier this week and a thrillling video, plus a sobering tally of mountain accidents from the Swiss Alpine Club (CAS).
It’s been a great year, with wonderful snow everywhere, so we’re putting in a bid now for the same next season!
Meanwhile, start polishing those hiking boots, for we’ll soon be moving into that kind of weather, after a spring pause to let the slopes recover.
And take a little time to step back and admire the Alps from the shores of Lake Geneva before you head up to the mountains.
Weather forecast
The temperature spread in the Lake Geneva region area as well as the northern Alps (Vaud, Valais) is 2-19C for the next four days, highs of 12-13C in resorts at 1,700 metres. Time for sun cream if you’re going to the mountains. And what a weekend in the mountains, with sunshine everywhere, occasional cloud cover, no wind and spring in the air. National weather service MeteoSwiss
Avalanche, snow reports
Steep slopes in central Switzerland, around Andermatt, have an avalanche risk of 3, but otherwise the risk is moderate, 2/5 throughout Switzerland. The WSL avalanche institute map shows snow depth still good throughout the Alps.
News
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Iraq is being hit by a series of deadly bomb blasts, with the death toll Tuesday 20 March inching up towards 5. , Close to 200 people are reported to be injured. The attacks come a week before an Arab League meeting hosted by Iraq. CNN says the attacks took place in several cities: Baghdad, Kirkuk, Karbala, Hilla, Tikrit, Baiji, Ramadi and Falluja and that “some of them targeted police or government facilities.”
Nine years ago today US troops entered the country in a move that brought about the end of Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Accident just 24km from Sion, where injured children, families were being prepared to fly to Belgium
Deadly accident on the A9 near Fully Friday noon
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – It has been a particularly deadly week on Swiss roads, and canton Valais, still reeling from the Sierre autoroute tunnel crash Tuesday that killed 28 people, had a second fatal accident on the A9 Friday, bringing to 31 the number of people who have died on Vaud and Valais roads in less than four days.
Traffic on the A9 from Martigny to Sion was stopped and emergency traffic signs were in place after a vehicle caught fire in the emergency lane of the autoroute Friday 16 March at 11:45, near the Fully-Saxon area. For reasons that are not yet clear, a van crashed into the back of a stationary truck, catching fire. Other drivers rushed to put out the fire and to free the trapped driver, unsuccessfully.
Police have not yet identified the victim.
Fully is just 24km from Sion, where police and hospital workers were busy loading children from Tuesday’s bus crash into air ambulances to fly back to Belgium and their initial route takes them directly over the autoroute where the crash occurred.
The road was closed between Martigny and Sion from 11:35 to 16:10 and from Sion to Martigny from 11:35 to 14:40.
Three children from the bus crash remain in critical condition at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne and a motorcyclist hit by a car Thursday in Tolochenaz near Morges is also hospitalized at the Chuv, in critical condition.
A motorcyclist and his passenger died when they collided with a car in Genolier, Vaud Thursday.
Girl at Chuv out of coma, but all three there considered still “in danger”
A Belgian armed forces plane refuels in Sion, at the foot of the mountains; smaller Rega air ambulances gathered 12 of the patients and flew them home to Belgium Friday during the day.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – In an extraordinary development Friday, all but four of the children injured in the bus crash Tuesday 13 March in a Sierre autoroute tunnel were flown back home Friday: 8 of the less injured left the hospital and were flown home Thursday and during the day Friday another 12 were taken home by Switzerland’s Rega emergency air service.
Six flights were required Friday, each lasting about an hour from Sion to Brussels, to fly home the 12 who are recovering from more serious injuries, all of them now in stable condition. Three of the Rega air ambulances (Challenger C-604 airplanes) handled the flights and doctors from the Rega organization spent Thursday night at the Sion hospital preparing the patients and briefing staff.
The children’s families accompanied them home in the air ambulances.
The skies and roads around Sion were busy Friday with numerous ambulances, helicopters and air ambulances moving patients, their families, medical teams and equipment.
Four others will need more time; three not yet out of danger
The child taken to hospital in Bern is stable and out of danger, but the three at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne are still considered to be “in danger” the Valais Hospital spokesperson said late Friday. One of the three, a girl, came out of her induced coma Thursday and is fully conscious, according to a statement from the hospital in Lausanne, but all three suffered multiple fractures and comas were induced to deal with neurological damage. The girl has spinal injuries as well.
Journalists were taken to the site of the crash Thursday evening, after families of the victims had visited and left flowers and messages, including a chalk heart, on the wall that the bus hit head-on
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – All 28 people who died in a bus crash Tuesday 13 March in Sierre have now been identified, say police. The formal identifications are necessary in order for police to release the remains to families.
The bodies will now be flown back to Belgium Friday on the two airplanes made available by the Belgian army, according to canton Valais police.
Police in Sierre earlier took about 250 journalists Monday evening to the closed Geronde Tunnel where the bus crashed Tuesday 13 March.
One of the distressing bits of news as part of their update was that only 19 of the 28 bodies had been identified.
Three hours later, police said that backup personnel and “exceptional means” made available for the identifications had allowed the process to be speeded up so that all the bodies could be identified in less than 48 hours.
Three of the problems the investigators ran into were the lack of a clear list for the occupants of the bus, since the group had three buses and one list of names, but also the fact that some of those who died in the violent crash were badly “mutilated”, making identification difficult, and too few witnesses given the number of deaths and serious injuries.
Dr Jean-Pierre Desfarzes, in charge of the emergency medical team, reflected the exhaustion and distress of the 200 rescue workers called to the scene, who worked throughout the night to save the injured and remove the dead
GENEVA / SION, SWITZERLAND – The death toll from Tuesday night’s horrific bus crash in Sierre, canton Valais remained at 28 Wednesday, according to Canton Valais police.
But in a rundown of the condition of the 24 passengers who are hospitalized with injuries there was good news and bad 20 hours after the accident.
The bus crashed head-on into a wall that is part of an emergency pullover area inside the tunnel, killing 28 and injuring 24, at 21:15 Tuesday 13 March.
The weather was fine, the tunnel well lit, no other vehicles were involved: in short, there is no easy explanation for the accident.
The bus was carrying children from southern Belgium who had been at a winter sports camp in the Val d’Anniviers. They were returning home and had only traveled 15 or so kilometres.
A press conference by Valais Police at 18:00 Wednesday provided a few new details:
- Of the 24 who are injured, 22 have been identified; police are still working to identify all of the dead definitively in order to tell their families, but the identification of two of the three who are in critical condition in Lausanne has not yet been possible and police have called in a number of medical specialists to try to speed up the process
- Numerous Dutch and Belgian families have come to Switzerland: some do not yet know if their children are dead or alive because there were three buses on the trip and although police quickly obtained a list of students, it was not immediately clear which children had taken which bus
- There were 52 people on the bus and the latest information indicates that in addition to the Belgians, 10 were Dutch, 1 German and 1 Polish person
- The state of the injured: the three patients at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne are in critical condition and Dr Jean-Pierre Deslarzes, head of the cantonal medical emergency group, choked up as he said that their lives remain in danger
- State of the others who are injured: one child flown to a hospital in Bern is in stable condition, six who were taken to hospital in Visp are medically well enough to leave the hospital; by Wednesday evening, of the 14 children hospitalized in Sion, one remained in intensive care but was being prepared to be moved to the pediatric care centre
- 200 rescue workers toiled throughout the night to free the injured and remove bodies; several passengers were incarcerated and cutting through the metal proved a long and difficult task, given the state of the bus, which suffered a violent impact
- translators and counselers are working with the canton to welcome and help house families and to help them cope with their grief and also the uncertainty.
The cause of the bus crash in Sierre, as well as its trajectory, are not yet clear
The cause of the accident remains unclear, but the district public prosecutor was rapidly contacted to open an investigation and ensure that police were able to safeguard any clues that might help clarify the cause.
Investigation head Olivier Elsig told reporters that the bus appeared to be traveling within the speed limit and that the children appeared to have used their seat belts, but the impact was so great that many of the seats were torn out.
He ruled out problems with the road surface or the tunnel itself, which is very well lit and relatively new (1999-2002 construction).
Police guard the area in the tunnel, near the Sierre west autoroute exit, where the accident occurred (left). The tunnel was closed Wednesday evening in the direction of Sion, for the investigation.
He cited the fact that the investigation is continuing, as a reason for not providing more details, but he also noted that the accident had occurred less than 24 hours earlier and a top priority was to remove the passengers, identify them and contact families.
The investigation could take some time, Elsig noted, as they look for witnesses who saw the bus before the accident and as they analyze wall and road tracings and interview survivors, once they are in a condition to talk.
Swiss, Belgian heads of state in Sion to try to understand crash, help families
World media flock to small city in mid-Alps to register the shock
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Mid-March is the time when Sierre, known as Switzerland’s sunshine city, steps out of its winter clothes. Spring is in the air despite the still snowy peaks surrounding this Alpine town. Read more…
Head-on crash into tunnel wall killed 28, injured 24 in Sierre, Switzerland (photo, Valais police)
SIERRE / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Police in Valais are trying to piece together the cause of the Tuesday night 13 March accident they are describing as “of an extreme violence”.
Twenty-eight people, 22 of whom were children about age 12, lost their lives in the crash at 21:15 Tuesday night.
Valais police chief Christian Varone immediately informed Belgium’s ambassador to Switzerland, Jan Luykx, who went directly to the scene of the crash to help police contact the families as quickly as possible.
In a Wednesday morning bulletin police provide slightly more detail but the cause of the crash and the high number of deaths and injuries remains baffling for now: the bus veered to the right in the tunnel and into the wall at the end of an emergency pullover area.
The impact was so violent that the front of the bus trapped a number of passengers, who had to be cut out by firefighters. Rescuers have made reference to the high speed at which the bus must have been travelling for the crash to have such an impact, but it is not yet clear if the bus, one of three in a group carrying the Belgian students and adults, was traveling within the speed limit, which is 100kph inside the tunnel.
The accident, which sent 24 people, mainly children, to six hospitals, including the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne and the cantonal hospital in Bern, called on a large number of emergency services: 30 police officers, 60 firefighters from Sierre and Sion, 15 doctors, 100 members of cleanup crews, 12 ambulances, 8 emergency helicopters (Air Glaciers, Air Zermatt, Rega), 3 psychologists who are providing counseling.
Ed. note: RTS, Swiss public radio/television in French, is providing regular updates that include photos of the very badly damaged front of the bus, taken in Sierre Wednesday morning.
Bus carried two classes of 12-year-olds; 24 injured
The bus carried 58 people, with the children from two towns in Flanders, Lommel and Heverlee. It was heading home at the end of the trip.Switzerland's Val d'Anniviers, where the school group had been skiing
Update 07:10 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A bus from Belgium, carrying two school classes of children who had just finished a week of ski holidays in the Val d’Anniviers, crashed in an autoroute tunnel in Sierre late Tuesday 13 March, killing 28 people and leaving 24 injured, Valais police say.
The accident occurred at 21.15 Tuesday night. The bus had just entered the autoroute and was in the tunnel that links the west and east A9 autoroute exits for Sierre when it swerved and crashed head-on into the tunnel wall at the end of an emergency pullover area.
The tunnel was built only 10 years ago, is wide and well-lit, relatively flat, with gradual curves, and the weather was dry and clear Tuesday evening so the tunnel and tires would have been dry.
The two bus drivers died in the accident. Police investigators are trying to determine what caused the accident.
Those who were injured are being treated in four area hospitals, with some flown to the Chuv in Lausanne and one to Bern.
The families, accompanied by psychologists, will be arriving in Switzerland during the day Wednesday.
Valais police have set up a hotline
From outside Switzerland +41 848 112 117
From Switzerland 0848 112 117
Update, Valais police report in Dutch
Sierre : een ernstig ongeluk met een Bus uit belgie
De 13.03.2012rond 21,15 In de Tunnel van de autobaan in Sierre is een ernstig ongeval gebeurd .
Een bus met belgische nummerplaat is tegen de wand van de tunnel opgeklapt.
Verscheidene personen zijn ernstig verwond, Een grootscheepse hulp actie is opgezet.
De bus reed vanaf Sierre richting sion. Terwijl hij in de tunnel reed ,is de bus van de weg afgeraakt en is tegen de wand aangereden op het einde van een vluchtplaats.
Verscheidene personen zijn ernstig verwond. De hulpgroepen zijn nog altijd bezig.De gewonden zijn vervoerd naar verscheidene ziekenhuizen,
De politie heeft een hulplijn opgezet die uitsluitend voor de families zijn gereserveerd.
BASEL, SWITZERLAND – A psychiatric hospital patient who escaped Tuesday evening 13 March stole a car and crashed into a number of people, killing a cyclist and injuring six other people, news agency ATS reports. Details to follow as police make them available.
In other breaking police news, 20 Minutes reports that a four-year-old boy fell 13 metres from his family’s apartment building in the Bourdonnette district of Lausanne, shortly before 18:00and he is in critical condition at the Chuv university hospitals, but the information has not been confirmed by police.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Sixteen people are officially reported dead from a train accident in southern Poland, where two high-speed trains had a head-on crash. Dozens of people are injured and Polish President Bronislow Komorowski has declared a national day of mourning, while the cause of the crash is investigated.
The accident occurred near the town of Szczekociny. An American is reported to have died and other foreigners on the train were reportedly from France, Ukraine and Spain. The trains are estimated to have been travelling at 100 kph. It is the worst train crash in 20 years in Poland.
Incident occurs 1 week after similar accident in Geneva
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Police in Zurich are seeking witnesses after a car crashed into a Zurich disco, the Lambada, early Friday 10 February, killing one person and injuring five others including the driver. Witnesses told journalists that the driver appeared to steer his car into the building intentionally after driving the wrong way up a one-way street at 05:30.
The 25-year-old driver had had a fight with the owner shortly before the incident. The crash killed a 39-year-old man and injured four other men and one woman, all between the ages of 21 and 36.
A week earlier, a man who had had a fight with a disco employee in Vernier, canton Geneva, drove his car into a group standing in front of the club, injuring three young people.
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
