On the weekend of 21 June, several debris flows occurred in the Misox valley in southern Graubünden following heavy storms. One of them has buried the village of Sorte. All Swisscom services and the mobile network failed.
In Lostallo, just a few minutes' drive from Sorte, water and masses of rock from the Moesa river destroyed a motorway bridge along the A13 towards San Bernardino. Two optical fibre cables ran under the bridge. They were torn away when the bridge collapsed. The A13 motorway remained closed for several days.
Major Incident Graubünden
No network in the upper Maggia Valley
Storms caused the Visletto Bridge near Cevio to collapse during the night of 30 June and the early hours of 1 July. The incidents in the upper Maggia Valley occurred between 1.30 a.m. and 3.00 a.m.
When the Visletto Bridge collapsed, it took with it the communication and power cables that ran under the bridge. This resulted in a total network failure in the region. TV, mobile network, Polycom – all services were interrupted, and the affected regions were cut off from the surrounding area.
Internet via satellite.
As all services in the Maggia Valley had failed, an internet connection was established via satellite using Starlink. It was delivered to the affected areas on the same day by dedicated cablex employees. Three internet access points were made available to the authorities. Another was used by cablex to restore services.
As soon as the experts had cleared the pedestrian bridge running parallel to the collapsed bridge, cablex laid a temporary line on 1 July. The optical fibre cable ran over a distance of 400 metres. This made it possible to restore all mobile services in the Maggia Valley by 6.00 p.m. The following day, the technicians restored the landline network.
