Remember 24. September 1993

Yesterday 15 years ago Brig-Glis was flooded and destroyed by the Saltina-River. I think most of the inhabitants remember exactly what they did on this black Friday in 1993.

I was 9 years old and in primary school. School finished around three o’clock on Friday afternoon, which was one hour earlier than the other days. A classmate came to my home after school. My mother was baking something like muffins. It had been raining for days and the radio was on, which was rather unusual. The channel was rro, our local radio station. Apparently they reported the whole afternoon about the Vispa-River in our neighbour village Visp. Then suddenly there had been news about the Saltina in Brig-Glis too. About four o’clock they reported that the Saltina was flooding the City. Happily our house is above Saltina-level, so we were safe.  Shortly after my classmate’s mom was calling because their house was already sourrounded by water. So she had to go home quickly. Today, when I think about how naive it was to send her home in this dangerous situation. But nobody could imagine how bad and dangerous it was. But she came home safely, thank God! 

A few minutes later my father came home from work. He was working in a building next to the Saltina. So he could observe the river the whole day, and decided to drive home, when he saw all the water running down the streets. He was probably one of the last persons who drove home through these streets. He saw all the students going home through the rapidly rising water.

Later we were listening to the radio. We couldn’t imagine how the city must look like. It was scary. I think we could watch the news on TV before the power went out. So we saw the first pictures from above out of a helicopter. We were shocked. Nobody could tell at this point of time how many people died. The water and mud filled in all ground floors up to the ceiling in the city center. From our balcony we could see a big dirty lake in Gamsen, not that far away.

So we spend the evening in the dark, with candles and our radio. Not far from us there was also a fire in a furniture shop. So the firefighters had not only to fight against the water. The radio was for many people like an anchor. It was the only source to get in touch with family members, who escaped the sudden flood and were staying with strangers. Mobile phones almost didn’t exist in this time, so it wasn’t that easy to find out where your family members were. We went to bed at three o’clock in the morning.

The next morning my mother told us, that the flood was very bad and that Brig was destroyed. Ma father had to go to the civil defense and help people. He couldn’t believe his eyes what he saw. He was walking on the debris and mud on first-floor-level. They rescued people from the department store “Migros”, who had to spend the night there in the first floor. In one part of the city, ist was only possible to move with a boat. So they brought food and water by boat to those people.

To see the destruction with our own eyes, we walked as near to the Saltina as it was possible. I will never forget what it looked like: There was a excavator metres above us on a causeway of debris, trying to keep the water inside the river. They fought all night and even risked their lifes to build a causway on both sides of the river, so that the water stops flowing through the streets of our beautiful city, which would be changed forever. Unfortunately two woman died in a shoe shop, as they tried to save the shoes until they had no more chance to escape. 

The following weeks wer not easy for everybody. We got a week off in school. You could enter the city center only with a permission of the police. They worked day and night to get all the mud and debris out of the streets, the shops and the restaurants. The air was filled with dust for months and there was a strange smell. We had to buy our food in the neighbour village, as almost all our store’s were destroyed. The same with the restaurants. Later when it was allowed to enter the city center, I went there with my grandparents. It was still dirty and every store was just a black hole. We stood before the “Migros” and could see, how people with gas masks were carrying bad food out of the building.

A few facts:

- about 250 000 m3 mud had to be removed out of the city, the maximum was 20 000 m3 per day with about 40 excavators and track loaders and 100 other vehicles.

- the Saltina transported about 2 000 m3 wood into the city

- 800 cars were destroyed

- 6 000 out of 12 000 phone lines were cut

It’s a pity that there is almost nothing on the web about the flood, as the internet was in it’s infancy. We have video tapes and old newspaper at home.

A video I found lately from TSR (French)

Article from the Rhone Zeitung (German)
Interview with the mayor of Brig-Glis (German)

Walliser Bote of 25.09.2008 I
Walliser Bote of 25.09.2008 II

Please remember that my mothertounge is not English, so there are probably strange sentences or other mistakes.