Mitholz or Blausee-Mitholz is a village in

Kandergrund Kandergrund is a municipality in the Frutigen-Niedersimmental administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History The area may have been lightly inhabited during the Bronze Age, however the earliest documented settlement was ...

municipality in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It has 170 inhabitantsDavid Williams
"An entire Swiss village must evacuate due to a World War II ammo dump. The cleanup could take 10 years"
CNN, 28 February 2020."Mitholz: Life in the shadow of an Alpine ticking time bomb"
''Swissinfo'', 30 October 2020. and is a station on the

Lötschberg railway line The Lötschberg is an Alpine mountain massif and usually associated with a major, historically important transit axis of the Alps in Switzerland with, at its core, the Lötschen Pass (german: Lötschenpass, Swiss German: ''Lötschepass''). The mou ...

. A munitions storage explosion in 1947 destroyed the village and killed 9 people; a safety study commissioned in 2018 found that the site still contained munitions and was unsafe, and in 2020 the government announced that the village must be temporarily abandoned in 2030 for a clean-up that is projected to last 10 years.

History

Mitholz was one of six populated places in the Kander Valley to make up the municipality of Kandergrund at its formation in 1850. After the development of the Lötschberg railway, the municipality was split in 1908 with effect in 1909;

Kandersteg Kandersteg is a municipality in the Frutigen-Niedersimmental administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located along the valley of the River Kander, west of the Jungfrau massif. It is noted for its spectacular mount ...

became a separate, larger municipality, and Mitholz is now one of three centres of population in Kandergrund. It had the first school in the valley, opened in 1740, and had a post office until 1998."Geschichte"
Gemeinde Kandergrund, retrieved 1 August 2021 . The steep topography of the Kander Valley has caused a series of natural disasters to affect the village. In August 1945, a

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of environments, ...

and ensuing flooding killed two people; in winter 1998–99, an

avalanche An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, such as a hill or mountain. Avalanches can be set off spontaneously, by such factors as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, animals, and ear ...

caused damage; in 1987 and 2011, the village was flooded. The village was also one of the worst affected settlements in the region in Cyclone Lothar in December 1999.

1947 munitions explosion

More than 7,000

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...

s of munitions, including

aerial bomb An aerial bomb is a type of explosive or incendiary weapon intended to travel through the air on a predictable trajectory. Engineers usually develop such bombs to be dropped from an aircraft. The use of aerial bombs is termed aerial bombing. ...

s, artillery rounds,

land mine A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automatic ...

s and

hand grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a Shell (projectile), shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern ...

s, were stored by the

Swiss Armed Forces The Swiss Armed Forces (german: Schweizer Armee, french: Armée suisse, it, Esercito svizzero, rm, Armada svizra; ) operates on land and in the air, serving as the primary armed forces of Switzerland. Under the country's militia system, r ...

in a depot inside a mountain overlooking Mitholz. The depot, one of the largest in a system of underground weapons stores built during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

as an expansion of the National Redoubt, consisted of 6 chambers in length. Shortly before midnight on 19 December 1947, an explosion of unknown cause blew off part of the side of the mountain, the largest non-nuclear explosion up to that date. 40 buildings in the village, including the station and the school, were destroyed by flying rocks and fire from exploding ordnance; 9 people were killed, four of them children, and 20 injured."Mitholz, Switzerland – 20 Dec 1947"
Munitions Safety Information Analysis Center, NATO, retrieved 1 August 2021."Mitholz—A village on top of a powder keg"
Deutsche Welle, 7 January 2021 (video, 5 mins 16 secs).John Miller
"Swiss villagers face 10-year evacuation in $1 billion bomb removal plan"
Reuters, 7 December 2020.Imogen Foulkes
"Mitholz - the tranquil Swiss village facing a time bomb"
BBC News, 31 July 2021. Approximately 20 houses were rebuilt in traditional style by craftsmen from the neighbouring Frutig Valley; many have inscriptions commemorating the disaster. The munitions storage was partly rebuilt and was later used to store

pharmaceuticals A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and ...

; in 2010 it was proposed as the site of a data centre. In 2018, the

Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport The Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS, german: Eidgenössisches Departement für Verteidigung, Bevölkerungsschutz und Sport, french: Département fédéral de la défense, de la protection de la population et des ...

announced that approximately half the munitions had not exploded, but remained inside the collapsed depot and under unstable rock, and a commissioned safety study found that there was a risk of another explosion. In February 2020, a further announcement was made that the village must be evacuated by 2030 in order for the Armed Forces to either remove or safely bury the remaining munitions, which is estimated to require ten years. Residents are to be compensated and offered housing to which to relocate."Swiss to evacuate village threatened by vast WWII ammo dump"
AP, 7 December 2020. File:Mitholz ca 1930.jpg, Aerial photograph of Mitholz, c. 1930, before construction of the munitions facility File:Mitholz Uebersicht.jpg, Aerial photograph January 1948 File:Empfangsgebaeude Blausee-Mitholz.jpg, Blausee-Mitholz station File:Mitholz Erkennungsdienst 08.jpg, Wreckage of the station, 1947 File:Mitholz Armeeapotheke.jpg, Swiss Armed Forces medical storage in former munitions dump, 2018

References

External links

* * {{Coords, 46.5273, 7.6746, display=title Villages in the canton of Bern Explosions in 1947

History

1947 munitions explosion

See also

References

External links