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Rockfall at Oeschinensee

I am posting this news article because if I was about to travel to this area, I would want to be informed about this.

Here is a link to the local news (German). The rockfall occurred on Saturday, and there is still a lot of movement, 6 cm/day. If this continues, or increases, there is the possibility of another event occurring.

You can see from the map that it is not in the main tourist area, but rather the other side of the lake. They have been monitoring this area for years. It is not the first time that there has been a rockfall there and they continue to reassess the danger.

No one was hurt, but you can see by the Ticktock video that people were quite frightened by the noise and visible dust clouds created by the fall. They report that some of the boulders that fell were the size of minivans.

https://www.bernerzeitung.ch/felssturz-am-oeschinensee-3000-tonnen-fels-stuerzen-ab-901197012329

Posted by
4141 posts

People were indeed frightened. However, nobody was ever in any danger. If I had been there I would just have watched.

The lesson to take away form this is to take sings telling you that a certain area is off limits seriously.

Posted by
523 posts

Yes, exactly! You can see on the Oeschinensee website that this area is closed.

Here is the map showing closures of their hiking routes. Even though I was looking at the website in English, the map is in German. At any rate it is also good practice to know the meaning of:

Gesperrt (closed)
Gefahrenzone (danger zone)
And especially: Lebensgefahr! (Life-threatening)

https://gko-static.ch/map/index.html

Knowing what is happening, where the sound is coming from and what area is affected can all help to alleviate fear.