Friday morning 16th February 2018, the rockfall that cut the Forclaz alpine road pass for a month was blasted.
According to Canal 9, the explosion took place at 11am and required the evacuation of the village of Trient in canton Valais: 32 people ended up in a yurt for security measures.
Canal 9 interviewed the cantonal geologist Guillaume Favre-Bulle who coordinated the operation, the President of Trient Bertrand Savioz and the inhabitants of the village.
Interview with Guillaume Favre-Bulle, geological engineer, Canton of Valais
It is quite rare this kind of blasting?
"Yes is very rare. This requires a careful preparation. There are three weeks of work and more than thirty drillings to prepare this shot."
Have there been any failures in today's operation?
"No, no failure."
It went as planned?
"Yes, we planned to mine three unstable compartments and everything went exactly as planned. They are all neutralized."
The goal was to secure this work area?
"Yes, some compartments were too unstable for us to do the work safely and now we've neutralized them."
The video of Canal 9
Trient: the rockfall which cut the Forclaz alpine road pass for a month was blasted.
1000 m3 were shattered
After this blasting operation, in the next days the teams will clear the materials that are on the road.
Objective: partial re-opening for emergency vehicles and residents (in secure convoys)... before the full opening to traffic.
