Top Swiss Ski Resort Zermatt Cut Off by Risk of Avalanches

(Bloomberg) -- Zermatt, one of Switzerland’s top ski resorts, has been cut off by the risk of avalanches and has closed all its runs.

The rail line to the Alpine village was closed at about 6:30 p.m. on Monday, while the road was shut earlier in the morning, according to Zermatt Tourism.

“There has been a lot of snow and the road and train from Tasch has been cut off since yesterday,” a spokeswoman for Zermatt Tourism said on Tuesday.

Resorts from France to Austria witnessed heavy snowfall over the past week as winter storms swept across the Alps. Zermatt, ranked the world’s fourth-best ski resort last year by Conde Nast Traveler readers -- behind Canada’s Whistler, Courchevel in France and Austria’s Lech -- has been a favorite of British tourists since Edward Whymper made the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865.

There are an estimated 30,000 tourists in the resort, according to Zermatt Tourism. The pistes are currently shut because of the avalanche risk, but power has been restored after an outage on Tuesday morning.

The duration of the interruption to train services on the line between the towns of Visp and Zermatt has yet to be determined, according to a statement on the website of Swiss Railways.

Zermatt Tourism will give an update at 7 p.m. on its website.

--With assistance from Catherine Bosley

To contact the reporter on this story: Dylan Griffiths in Geneva at dgriffiths1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net, Thomas Mulier, John J. Edwards III

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