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Extreme work for Menzi Muck’s

by Nick Drew  |  Mon 18 Nov 2019

Extreme work for Menzi Muck’s

Details are sketchy, but as I understand it high up in the Swiss mountains, some 2700 metres above sea level a glacier lake forms in a low-lying area, over the years this has caused many problems when it overflows sending torrents of water down into the villages below causing extensive flooding problems.

To try and alleviate the problem and prevent any future flooding a 1300-metre long drainage canal was excavated through solid ice to channel the water away in a more manageable and controlled way. In really hard areas a rockwheel attachment was deployed to cut through the ice, one would assume that a hydaulic breaker would not have been an option due to the potential risk of causing an avalanche.  

In total 3 Menzi Muck M535 machines were deployed to the jobsite making their way up from the ski slope area of Crans Montana, it was quite a climb and, in many areas, they needed the assistance of a tracked Snowcat to pull them up. It was clearly challenging work, in what could potentially be a very dangerous place to be, but the views must have been absolutely breath-taking!

Checkout this video which features the job on a news bulletin, it’s in foreign language but still worth a look.

 

The Digger Man Blog would like to thank Diane Klee for sharing these photos with us and thanks to Robert Carlsson for suggesting we cover this topic on the blog.

 

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