Lothar: An example of safety after forest damage
The clean-up work after the storm "Lothar" in December 1999 claimed several lives. Appropriate courses help forestry workers today to move safely through the forest.
Föhn and winter storms are not rare in Switzerland: Vivian, Lothar, Evi, Burglind and similar are their names. They are a challenge for occupational safety: the cleanup work in the forests is usually very difficult. In addition to the winter storm damage, people also always come to harm.
After Lothar, 17 people had fatal accidents during the cleanup work in 2000, 14 of them in private and farm forests. In the following year, 19 people lost their lives during logging operations in the forest, and in the two years 2002 and 2003 together, another 17. The federal government reacted and set up a working group in which Suva was also represented.
Since then, private forest owners in particular have been targeted with prevention measures such as continuing education courses to raise awareness of the risks involved in "logging". Professionals are responsible for cleaning up the forests after a hurricane like Lothar.
In storm-damaged forests, with trees and tree limbs tossed, uprooted, broken, snapped, and snagged, things can get dangerous: whether it's due to difficult access in an unstable environment or unpredictable stresses from interlocking or unstable trees that can suddenly fall over, topple, or roll off.
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