The existence of a quaint village in eastern Switzerland is threatened by an unstable massif.
The small village of Brienz is home to 128 people, according to data shared by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office in 2016, who enjoy an enviable landscape with mountains surrounding them and the turquoise-coloured Lake Brienz on their doorsteps.
But the proximity of this Swiss village to the mountains is also a reminder of the danger posed by the Bröckelberg massif.
This section of the mountain, large approximately three square kilometres and with a rock volume of two million cubic metres, has been slowly but surely sliding towards the village at an average rate of more than a metre per year, SwissInfo.ch reported.
However, the heavy bursts of rains experienced in the area in the summer have caused the inexorable descent to pick up speed.
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In May, the handful of people living in the village located in the southwestern Swiss canton of Graubünden were forced to temporarily leave their homes and possessions after authorities raised the level alert to red amid fears the massif was to break loose.
In mid-June, a landslide caused 1.5 million cubic metres of rock to slide down the mountainside.
While they narrowly avoided the village, the rocks blocked an access road and landed near the school building.
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Fears for the imminent safety of the village decreased in the following weeks, and residents were eventually allowed to return to their homes from late June.
But as July recorded around 85 millimetres of rain falling in the area and more bounders descended from the mountains, concerns spiked again, although it did not lead to a new evacuation.
Speaking about the worst-case scenario faced by the village, Simon Löw, a geology professor at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich, told Swiss public broadcaster SRF several rocks could tumble down from the mountain at a speed of up to 120 miles per hour.
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Alongside keeping a close eye on the massif and evacuating the area when needed, authorities also want to respond to the ongoing threat by creating a new drainage tunnel.
This measure, approved two months ago, aims at reducing the risk of more landslides.
The estimated cost of this project is CHF40million (£36.04m).
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