What a week - snow leaves villages isolated

18th December 2008, by Chris Gill

Monday’s heavy snowfall cut off road and rail access to a number of villages in Switzerland and the southern French Alps.

In Switzerland, parts of the Valais region were severely hit. The railway line serving Andermatt, Visp and Zermatt was blocked and closed for a 20km stretch. The road connecting these two villages was also closed due to the increased avalanche risk.

In the Saas Valley, the road between Stalden and Saas Grund was blocked, effectively cutting access to Saas Fee. And we’ve reports of 30cm snowfall at Lausanne today (Wednesday 17 December) - the town is at 500m. Most high mountain passes in the country and further south into Italy have been, or are still closed.

And in France, it’s the Southern Alps making the headlines this week. Reports from ski travel agency, Ski Solutions say that Isola 2000 was cut off by the metre of snow falling at the beginning of the week - the access road up to the resort was closed, with visitors left stranded. Montgenèvre was also badly affected and Les Deux Alpes has reported a metre of snowfall in the past 24 hours.

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