GENEVA (AP) – Helicopter crews ferried down scores of tourists stranded atop of one of Switzerland’s most popular mountain resorts on Friday after a mudslide a day earlier cut off road access until next week.
Teams from Air Zermatt rescue and helicopter service led the operation for what Swiss media said were about 2,200 tourists – mostly Swiss – caught at the Saas Fee resort in the southern Valais region.
Valais authorities said a downpour overnight from Wednesday to Thursday caused several rivers in the Saas Valley to overflow their banks between the towns of Stalden and Saas-Balen. They said the road was likely to be closed until at least early next week.
Local TV Canal 9 on Thursday aired video of surging, muddy and rock-laden torrents spilling across a road.
On Friday, public broadcaster RTS broadcast images of a long line of people, some dressed in hiking gear, waiting for the flights out.
A spokesman for Air Zermatt said it wasn’t immediately able to estimate how many people had been evacuated in the late-afternoon operation that ran before nightfall.
