The inhabitants of a Swiss village will have to be evacuated from 2025 to allow the cleaning of a former underground munitions depot dating from the Second World War, an operation which will take about ten years, the authorities announced Thursday (September 23).
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During the Second World War, the Swiss army built this depot in Mitholz, buried in the mountains, in the canton of Bern. But in 1947, some of the roughly 7,000 tons of gross ammunition stored there exploded, killing nine people nearby. There are still nearly 3,500 gross tons of ammunition, in the rubble of the installation and in the scree.
The risk of another blast has been underestimated for decades.
But a situation assessment carried out in 2018 concluded that the risks involved were not acceptable, and the Swiss government decided in December 2020 that the ammunition remains should be removed.
"The first houses will have to be evacuated from 2025 to allow the construction from 2026 of the protective works of the road and the railway"
, indicated the Ministry of Defense in a press release.
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The moves will have to take place by 2030 so that the actual evacuation of the ammunition remains can begin as early as 2031, he said.
It will take about ten years.
Until the actual evacuation, work will mainly be undertaken to limit the risks or effects of an explosion and to prepare the main evacuation phase.
Following the explosion in 1947 in Mitholz and a depot in another locality, the Swiss army threw thousands of tons of ammunition into the lakes.
The Ministry of Defense estimates that more than 8,000 tons of ammunition and ammunition remains were dumped by the Swiss army over the last century in the lakes of Thun, Brienz and Lucerne, in the center of the country.