Floods: Rhine shipping and Geneva affected
After heavy rainfall, the Rhine near Basel was closed to shipping on Wednesday due to flooding. In Geneva, five bridges over the Rhone tributary Arve were closed as a precaution.
On the Rhine, the border triangle between Switzerland, Germany and France was affected, as reported by the Swiss authorities. According to the Keystone-SDA news agency, the shipping closure applied from the Swiss town of Rheinfelden via Basel to Kembs in France. According to the forecast by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, the flood waters on the Rhine were expected to peak at midday and then slowly recede.
In Geneva, the Arve became a raging torrent with a record discharge of 1000 cubic meters of water per second, three times as much as usual. The closure of five bridges over the river caused traffic chaos in the early morning, as numerous streetcar and bus lines were also interrupted. Barriers were erected along the river as a precaution. According to the SRF broadcaster, the reason for the large amounts of water was not only the rain, but also rising temperatures on the mountains, which resulted in a lot of meltwater.
In several other cantons, rivers partially overflowed their banks, for example in Fribourg and Bern. Roads were closed in Valais due to the risk of landslides.
The shipping closure on the Rhine not only impacted trade between Switzerland, Germany, and France but also affected weather predictions for the region. With the arrival of warmer temperatures, melting snow added to the flood waters, exacerbating the traffic disruptions caused by the bridge closures.
Source: www.dpa.com
