Residents pack up as Swiss village evacuated under rockslide threat

View of the village Brienz and the ‘Brienzer Rutsch’, taken in Brienz-Brinzauls, Switzerland (Arnd Wiegmann/AP)

Residents have packed up their belongings in cars and trucks before an evacuation order took effect in a tiny village in eastern Switzerland that is facing an urgent rockslide threat.

As geologists and other experts in fluorescent vests took measurements on Friday, villagers and tourists bared their emotion that the centuries-old Alpine village of Brienz – home to under 100 residents – could soon be subsumed under spilling rock.