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Body found after floods in Switzerland with two still missing

Swiss rescuers on Sunday found the body of one of three people missing since floods hit the southeastern canton of Grisons, police said.

Published: 23 June 2024 16:44 CEST

Body found after floods in Switzerland with two still missing

A police van in the water in the Graubunden (Grisons) canton in Switzerland after violent downpours caused floods and landslides. Photo: Piero CRUCIATTI/AFP.

Rainstorms Friday set off flooding and landslides that tore down houses in the mountainous Val Mesolcina valley district of the canton.

The body of a man was found eight kilometres (4.5 miles) from where he went missing, police said.

A woman declared missing was found alive in rocks and mud on Saturday. Two other people are still missing.

“The probability of finding them alive is low,” said police spokesman William Kloter.

Other areas of Switzerland, including the ski resort of Zermatt, have also suffered with heavy rainfall in recent days, with several roads cut off and rail services hit.

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Switzerland braced for more violent storms this weekend

Swiss federal weather service MeteoSchweiz reported that sunny conditions are expected across most of Switzerland on Thursday and Friday.

However, violent storms and even hail showers are forecast to return on Saturday, with more developing throughout Sunday.

Image: https://www.meteoschweiz.admin.ch/#tab=forecast-map

Severe weather is most likely to be experienced in the country’s south-west and the Bern region on Saturday, before cloudy conditions and rain will impact most of the country on Sunday.

Alpine areas are the most likely to be affected by rain, while the lowlands will experience milder and drier conditions.

MeteoSchweiz reports that weather conditions will then improve across the next week.

Severe weather disruptions

The forecast comes after parts of Switzerland were subjected to severe thunderstorms and rain over the past seven days.

On Saturday, June 22, storms in the canton of Graubünden left police searching for three missing hikers in the Mesolcina Valley and forced dozens of residents to be evacuated amid fears of flooding and landslides.

Also in Graubünden, the A13, an important motorway connecting Switzerland’s north and south, was also severed by landslides and flooding near the town of Lostallo.

The motorway will completely closed until July 10, when one lane will be reopened. It is not expected that all lanes will be operational before the end of the year.

In the canton of Valais, the storms also temporarily isolated Zermatt from the rest of the country, as roads were blocked and the Matterhorn-Gotthard-Bahn railway was damaged, necessitating several weeks of repair.

Similar weather on Tuesday night also led to what has been called ‘the flood of the century’ in the canton of Vaud, where a month’s worth of torrential rain left the town of Morges, on the shores of Lake Geneva under several feet of water.

Better preparation required

The disastrous conditions have led to calls for the country to better prepare for such natural disasters.

Swiss hydrologist Frédéric Jordan told Swiss public radio, RTS, on Monday: “In the last hundred years or so, heavy floods have typically occurred between August and October.

“However, if we look at the last 12 months, we had a major flood on the Rhône River on November 14, 2023 and one on June 21, 2024, which is quite new,” he explained.

He went on to state that “Switzerland must take note of this new information and adapt.”

Despite fluctuations in weather trends over the past four decades, flooding has cost Switzerland approximately 3.5 billion francs since records began in 1972.

In that period of time, the worst flooding occurred in August 2005, leaving much of the country underwater and resulting in multiple deaths and the evacuation of thousands.

Outlook for the rest of the summer

Meteorologist Roger Perret, of the Swiss weather blog MeteoNews, nevertheless offers hope for those looking for a sunny summer.

Analysing air pressure, precipitation and ocean temperature data, his ‘Summer Oracle’ predicts warmer, drier weather over July and August.

He writes: “The record high temperatures of the seas certainly indicate that there will be heat waves, which encourage the formation of Atlantic lows, which will encourage hot south to southwest conditions over central and western Europe.

Perret notes in his blog that his MeteoNews colleague, Fred Decker, offers a similar prognostication

“July and August would then be largely dominated by the Azores high, which would mean that Switzerland would often have dry, sunny and above-average warm weather.

“Longer periods of heat are also quite possible. Thunderstorms would occur mainly in the and would be rare in the lowlands.”

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