It became clear 30 years ago: Falli Hölli is lost
Published: Wednesday, Jul 3rd 2024, 09:40
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It was 30 years ago: on July 19, 1994, the Falli Hölli vacation home settlement above Plasselb FR was finally abandoned. A huge landslide was just about to carry 37 buildings into the depths.
The event had begun quite harmlessly in March 1994, when drinking water pipes had to be replaced twice in the settlement. In April, the owners of the vacation chalets noticed the first cracks in their houses. In May, it became clear that something bigger was going on in this area of the Senseoberland.
In the area on the eastern slope of the Plasselbschlund, wide trenches had opened up and the first houses were suddenly leaning. At first it was thought that the heavy rainfall of the previous months had caused the landslides. It soon became apparent that the entire subsoil had started to move.
Soil in motion
Between 30 and 40 million cubic meters of earth slid down the Schwyberg towards the valley - over a length of up to two kilometers, a width of up to 700 metres and a depth of up to 70 metres. That is an amount equivalent to the contents of 12,000 to 16,000 Olympic swimming pools.
The earth slid up to six meters a day. Most of the chalets collapsed, as did the Falli Hölli hotel and restaurant, which included a ski lift. The vacation and military camp next to the hotel was also destroyed.
In August 1994, the soil reached the bottom of the valley and thus the Höllbach. A dam 400 meters long and 30 meters high was formed. Fortunately, the dam did not burst.
In spring 1995, the landslide came to a halt. Since then, the Plasselbschlund has been as quiet as before - the ruins of the houses were demolished in the summer of 1996. Apart from a few remnants and a memorial stone, there is nothing left to remind us of the settlement.
The geologists had warned
The municipality of Plasselb and private promoters wanted to profit from the emerging tourism industry when the vacation resort was planned in the early 1970s. The concerns of geologists were thrown to the wind.
Freiburg geologist Hugo Raetzo later told the Freiburger Nachrichten newspaper that the slope in question had been sliding for thousands of years. Before 1994, the slope had last been in strong motion in 1612. It simply "woke up from a dormant phase" in 1994. The heavy rainfall contributed to the landslide.
Consequences for spatial planning
In the end, the owners of the 37 houses that had slipped down were paid a total of CHF 15 million by the Fribourg buildings insurance company. The insurance company had opposed the building permit for the military and vacation camp in 1976, citing the geology.
The Falli Hölli case had consequences for spatial planning. In 1995, the cantonal government of Fribourg decided to zone out 500,000 square meters of building land in endangered areas. And it was not least because of Falli Hölli that the hazard maps in Switzerland were improved.
©Keystone/SDA
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