Public service Red zone after storm disaster for part of Sorte in Misox
The Graubünden authorities have responded to the storm disaster in Misox last June with a new hazard map. The particularly affected part of the village of Sorte is now in a red zone, as experts explained on Thursday. The zone remains evacuated.
03.04.2025, 18:30
SDA
Around a dozen buildings are affected, as could be seen at the presentation of the new hazard map to the media in the municipality of Lostallo, to which Sorte belongs. Without new protective structures, the houses will remain uninhabitable.
"The new hazard map marks the start of the municipality's work," explained municipal president Nicola Giudicetti to the Keystone-SDA news agency. "We are now looking at what options we have, what the costs would be and what the wishes of the population are. The municipality will make a decision in a few months' time.
From abandonment to total protection
The currently conceivable spectrum ranges from zoning out and abandoning the evacuated part of the village of Sorte, which is also particularly at risk in the future, to complete protection with new protective structures, said Giudicetti. It would then take a certain amount of time to build them - if they are built at all. The 20 or so people who were evacuated will have to be patient.
Storms on June 21 led to major flooding and landslides in the southern Graubünden valley. One part of Sorte in particular was buried by debris. Two people lost their lives and one person is still missing. The scale and probability of the disaster was classified by experts as a 100-year disaster.
As is so often the case, a combination of several factors led to the storm disaster, as an evaluation of the event by experts who were called in revealed. The rainfall on June 21 was not that extreme, but it hit ground that was very saturated with water. There was also an above-average amount of snow in the mountains, which was washed away by the rain.
