NENDAZ, Switzerland
(AP) -- A burst water main on a mountaintop loosened earth and
sent it barreling downhill, burying chalets and farms and leaving
three people missing, police said Wednesday.
The water
main was at a hydroelectric plant 4,000 feet above sea level,
and the flow of water late Tuesday destabilized a ''really enormous''
amount of earth and mud, police spokesman Pierre-Martin Moulin
said.
Along with
the damage to buildings, the mudslide blocked a main road and
at one point even spread across the River Rhone, almost 3,300
feet below the burst main.
A number of
people were evacuated in time but three remained unaccounted for,
police said. The cause of the burst was not immediately known.
Police said
the water supply had now been cut off and there was no danger
of further landslides.
The accident
came almost exactly two months after a mudslide caused by heavy
rains slammed into the village of Gondo, on the Swiss border with
Italy, destroying part of the village and killing 13 people.
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