Word: switzerland
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...molehill," in this case, was a towering wall of snow that had torn loose from Switzerland's 11,532-ft. Gelmihorn just before dawn one day last week and roared into a group of buildings near the village of Reckingen. Some 50 sleeping occupants were buried in a 40-ft. mound of snow. The canton's rescue squad rushed to the scene with snow-sounding poles and dogs, but its efforts were hampered by a howling blizzard. The eventual toll: 30 dead, 18 injured, most of them officers of a Swiss army unit that had been practice-shooting...
Freakish Weather. It was Switzerland's worst single avalanche disaster since 1749, and one of the latest in a series of giant slides that have already made many of Europe's towering mountain ranges more perilous this winter than at any time since World War II. More than 100 persons have been killed by falling snow in France, Switzerland, Italy and Austria...
...parts of the Alps, and intermittent thaws have loosened its grip in many places. Blizzards have also caused sliding; the sound of the avalanche at Reckingen, for example, could not even be heard above the shriek of 70-m.p.h. winds. Avalanche warnings have been common all winter, especially in Switzerland, which has the world's best detection facilities (see SCIENCE). Even so, few residents pay much attention to them. Says one expert: "It's nature's whim and we have to live with...
Even as rescuers were searching for the victims of Europe's latest avalanches (see THE WORLD), scientists atop an Alpine mountain were continuing the work that may some day prevent such disasters. They are members of Switzerland's Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, the world's first and foremost scientific establishment dedicated to the study and forecasting of avalanches. Before the institute was established 26 years ago, high above the resort town of Davos in the eternal snows of the 8,000-ft. Weissfluhjoch, knowledge of avalanches consisted mostly of folklore. Now, thanks...
...even more destructive phenomenon is the giant slab avalanche, or Schneebrett (snow board), in which a huge mass of snow may come sliding down, as at Reckingen in Switzerland last week. Highly unpredictable, slab avalanches occur when one cohesive layer of snow breaks free of the ground or of other snow layers. They can be caused by rising temperatures that send lubricating water between layers of snow, letting the white blanket slip like a quilt from the bed of a tossing sleeper. Exerting forces as great as 100 tons per square yard, such avalanches have been known to upend steel...