St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-10-28
A Swiss Landslide.

A remarkable landslide occurred in
Switzerland last month, by which the
village of Elm, at the foot of the Plat
tenberg Mountain, was almost COM
pletely destroyed. Some large slate
quarries were on the slope above the
village, and through these large crew
ices had been made by frequent earth
quakes. On September 9th it was per-
ceived that the soil at the quarry was
in slow motion, and house situated
Immediately below was evacuated.
Two days later, between and 6 O'Clock
in the afternoon, it was seen that the
forest on the slope of the mountain be-
gan to move, the trees being bent like
field of corn during a strong wind !;
they then rushed down, together with
the rocks situated above the quarry,
breaking up into thousands of pieces.
This formidable stone avalanche reach
ed the village, the trees were bent like
straw, and the houses moved by the
pressure of air pushed by the landslip.
Men and houses were thrown on the
opposite side of the valley, smashed
againstrOcks, and buried by the land
slip, which, as in the catastrophe of the
ROssberg, crossed the valley and rose
up hifi on its opposite side. The first
landslip destroyed that part of the Elm
Commune which is named Unterthal !;
but second one followed Immediately,
destroying the village, and throwing
the houses on the opposite side of the
valley, one kilOmetre wide. The pic
turesque valley of Unterthal is now
covered with a mass of mud, earth and
stones, thirty to forty metres thick, on
the surface of which are seen blocks of
the size of house. The Sernft River,
which flows in the valley, is barred by
the debris, and has formed a small lake.
The number of persons killed is about
l60. Another small landslip occurred
on the following day, and the slope of
the mountain continues to be in mo-
ton.
The Times Geneva correspondent
says: According to the measure
ments and estimates of Professor Helm,
of Zurich University, who has just
visited Elm, the earthslip, though less
destructive of human life than those of
Plurs and Goldau, probably exceeds in
extent either of those catastrOphes,
great as they were. The portion of
the Tschingel Alp which broke away
from the parent mountain measured at
it's base 400 metres by $50 metres. The
length of what Professor Helm calls the
debris stream is 800 metres, and va
ries in breadth from 300 to 400 metres.
The distance of the extreme end of the
stream from the place whence it broke
away is 1000 metres. The extent of
the valley bottom, which is tolerably
even, covered by debris is computed at
$4,000 metres, while the entire mass
makes total of 900, 600 square metres.
From the lower part of the valley to
the upper joint of rupture the height
is 620 metres. The fall was, therefore,
little over 1000 feet. The lowest es-
innate of the contents of the slip, ac-
cording to the admeasurements of the
engineers, is I0,0O0,0O0 cubic metres.
1t contains, says the professor, enough
stone to build two cities as large as
Zurich, and the population of Zurich is
5000. Some of the blocks, which are
heaped 1l2 metres higher than the vii
lage of Elm, measure $50 cubic
metres, and are estimated to weigh
$500 tOnsn ........ ........ ..H...