Zermatt - a small town in the Swiss Alps - at first glance is no different from the neighboring towns and villages. The same neat houses with bright geraniums on the window, cozy cafes and bars. On its streets, as elsewhere in the alpine towns, you can hear the hubbub of multilingual tourists. And on the outskirts of Zermatt you can hear the gentle melody of the Alpine foothills - the murmur of streams and the chirping of grasshoppers. The colors here are so pure, and the air, permeated by sunlight, is so transparent that it seems as if time itself has stopped here.
In the vicinity of Zermatt, the Mountain of Mountains is located - its main attraction, for the sake of which numerous tourists from different countries come here. In 1865, the first ascent to its top took place, although the height of the mountain is far from being a record - 4478 meters above sea level. But the silhouette of the Mountain of Mountains resembles an almost regular pyramid, as if it embodies the perfection of geometric shape. And everything perfect, as you know, has always attracted a person …
At the top of the Mountain, snow sparkles, which is usually called light and fluffy. However, when hundreds of thousands of tons of accumulated white mass are simultaneously set in motion and rushing downward at the speed of a courier train, such a huge stream becomes a roaring, deadly beast.
… It happened on February 29, 1908. In the evening, the small mountain hotel, located a few miles from the Swiss town of Hoppenstein, reigned in casual fun. Seeing that a lot of people had gathered in the hall, the owner of the hotel, the good-natured fat man Gzoll, asked for a minute of attention.
- Gentlemen! He began. “Today I received a letter from the district forester. He advises everyone to leave the hotel and go down to the city. According to him, avalanches may come down from the slopes of Faldum.
However, the cheered residents of the hotel only laughed, and no one wanted to go downstairs.
And in vain! Very little time passed, and people standing at the windows of the hotel suddenly saw a strange picture. The layer of snow, a minute ago peacefully resting on the sloping slopes of Mount Faldum, shuddered and began to slide down - faster and faster.
Soon the rumbling snow stream was very close and a terrible roar was heard. At the same instant, the roof of the hotel was ripped off and thrown to the opposite side of the mountain. The heavy billiard table soared into the sky as if it were a light feather. The people facing the avalanche were suffocated by the terrible air pressure. Of the thirty people present, twelve died in this disaster …
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"White death", as avalanches are also called, has cut off many human lives over the centuries and millennia. Like dragons, avalanches lurked on the slopes of snow-capped mountain peaks, they quietly doze in their cold shelters. Snow blizzards and storms are raging here, generously sprinkling the mountain slopes with snow and piling up huge snowdrifts. It is known that snow retains heat well; therefore, snow layers consist, as it were, of two temperature zones - cold upper and warm lower ones. Warmed by snow and protected from frost, the ground begins to thaw. The lower layers of snow become very "hot", and they begin to evaporate some of the moisture, which rises from warm zones to colder ones, where the pressure is less. Thus, at the bottom, the snow becomes looser, and in the upper layers, on the contrary, it becomes denser and heavier.
Snowy hundred-ton blocks hang as if on a thin thread. It is worth breaking this unstable balance, and at some point, unable to withstand their own gravity, avalanches fall from a height and fall along steep slopes, raising clouds of snow dust. In their impetuous run, they sweep everything in their path. As if houses of cards were falling under their onslaught, not only sturdy log huts, but even stronger buildings made of brick and stone. As if with a razor, a swift snow stream cuts steel rails, grinds stone buildings into small chips. People and animals perish under their ruins and multi-meter piles of snow. An avalanche drives a powerful air wave in front of it, which can sometimes cause greater destruction than the impact of the snow masses themselves.
The first mentions of avalanches are found in the works of the ancient Greek historian Polybius and the famous Roman historian Titus Livy. Polybius, for example, described the campaign of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, who, during the Second Punic War, planned to stab his eternal enemies, the Roman legionaries, in the back. Making his famous trek through the Alps, Hannibal seemed to have no idea what a terrible and indestructible enemy his army would meet in the Alpine mountains. Huge avalanches buried here at once as many of his soldiers as he had not lost so far in any of the bloodiest battles.
Horror and fear have brought avalanches to people for many centuries, therefore, many legends and legends associated with them appeared among the mountain peoples. The inhabitants of the Swiss canton of Wallis gave female names to all avalanches, and the inhabitants of the Alps considered each individual avalanche a living creature. From generation to generation, stories of witches who sat on avalanches were passed from mouth to mouth. In 1652, in one of the Alpine villages, a trial of such "witches" took place. Several poor women were accused of causing avalanches with their witchcraft and causing great disaster. They were convicted and publicly executed.
Switzerland is considered the most avalanche-dangerous country. According to rough estimates, an average of up to ten thousand avalanches descend from the mountains here. One of the historical chronicles reports on the terrible tragedy that took place in 1689 in Montafan. For several days in early February, there was such a heavy snowfall that many people and livestock died in the valley, and houses were destroyed. “According to the unanimous testimony of eyewitnesses, the avalanches descended so quickly, sweeping everything into the air, that even if the inhabitants heard the approach of avalanches, they would not have time not only to flee, but also to call for help … No one knew where to run.” People tried to escape in old houses that had stood for more than three hundred years, which were considered strong and reliable, but avalanches carried them down too. At night, the screams of the wounded or people half-buried in avalanches were heard.“It was often impossible to provide assistance due to the huge masses of snow and the continuous falling of avalanches. The bodies, some of which were found only after 6-10 weeks, presented a terrible sight, as they were bloody and severely mutilated. This terrible catastrophe would have touched a stone!"
One of the biggest misfortunes in the Alps happened during the First World War, when December 16, 1916 - just one day! - 6 thousand Austrian soldiers died under avalanches. Scientists suggest that this avalanche, like many others, was caused by artillery cannonade, which did not stop then, day or night. This mourning day went down in the history of the Austrian state under the name "Black Thursday". [1]
Avalanches also occur at the other end of the world - in the so-called New World. During the "gold rush" (1860-1910) in the west of America, avalanches repeatedly poured down entire villages of gold diggers, which led to the death of dozens of people. One of the worst disasters of this kind occurred in 1911 in Wellington, Washington. The avalanche buried three trains at once, killing 120 people.
Few people manage to escape from such an element. But Matias Zdarsky, a victim of one of the avalanches, miraculously survived. Subsequently, he recalled:
“On February 28, 1916, I was ordered to go with a detachment in search of soldiers who had been caught in an avalanche the day before. After a two-hour march, we came to an avalanche that covered 25 people. I myself went to the place of the accident to familiarize myself with the conditions of the rescue work. At that moment, amid the artillery cannonade of the close-located front, the roar of an avalanche was heard … I ran to the edge of the avalanche ravine, but did not have time to make three jumps, as something covered the sun. A terrible black-and-white spotted monster descended on me from the west side. I was dragged into the abyss, and it seemed that I had lost both arms and legs … The snow pressed on me more and more, my mouth was clogged with ice, my eyes seemed to come out of their sockets … I felt only one desire then - to go to a better world as soon as possible …
Soon the avalanche slowed down, but the pressure continued to increase, my ribs cracked, my neck rolled to the side, and I thought, "It's over!" But suddenly another one fell on my avalanche and broke it into pieces … The avalanche spat me out.
Subsequently, doctors found eighty bone fractures in him. For a long time, he lay in the hospital and survived only thanks to his enormous willpower. In one of his works devoted to avalanches, he wrote: "The seemingly innocent white snow is not even a wolf in sheep's clothing, but a tiger in a lamb's skin."
HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev