EXCLUSIVE The tiny Swiss village on the brink of annihilation by massive rockslide

A dairy farmer has told how he was the last man to leave a Swiss village whose residents have all been evacuated under the threat of being destroyed by a massive landslide.

Giorgin Bonifazi, a father of four, locked up his house after making sure his prized herd of 32 cattle – which he treats as if they were his own – was safe after being ordered to join the rest of the people of Brienz to leave.

The picturesque hamlet has become a modern-day Sword of Damocles, like a mountain of more than two million tons about to collapse and be wiped off the face of the earth.

Giorgin, 59, has now moved into his mother-in-law’s house, along with his wife Annette and their 15-year-old daughter, while his cows are temporarily housed in a communal barn – while his flock of sheep is left to fend for themselves in the fields around Brienz.

Giorgin showed MailOnline a photo of his house, with the imposing mountain in the background, and said: ‘I’ve lived in Brienz all my life and over the last few years we’ve gotten used to cracks in the walls and buildings.

‘In one of my stables, the floor no longer connects to the wall and there is a huge gap that has grown considerably in recent years.

“In one of the fields at the back of my house, a huge crack several feet long appeared overnight and I was able to stick my feet and a pitchfork into it.”

Cuddling one of his beloved calves in a temporary shed, he added: “The destructive power the mountain could bring is terrifying to contemplate and so we took the advice of the authorities and left – only a would go crazy.

At night you could hear the rocks bouncing down the mountainside, they sounded like a train, but after a while you got used to it, but not this time.

“They seemed to come down more often and in greater numbers, some landing in the field behind my house.

“If the mountain gives way and the rock face comes down, it will come through like an avalanche and destroy everything.

“The problem is nobody knows when we can go back, it’s just a matter of waiting and watching and hoping that when it happens the village will be spared.”

Meanwhile, a geology expert has told MailOnline that the landslide has the potential to penetrate at over 200 km/h and wipe out everything in its path.

Professor Emeritus Simon Low is part of a team of scientists and experts overseeing a huge mass of rock and boulders looming over the hamlet that wouldn’t look out of place on a Toblerone package.

The 84 residents were ordered out last week and a strict exclusion zone was put in place around the area with police and civil protection units manning roadblocks.

From his office at the University of ETH Zurich, Professor Low explained how Brienz’s fate rests in the hands of more than two million cubic tons of mountainside.

He explained to MailOnline how a system of cameras and sensors is aimed at the mountain, carefully watching for any changes, focusing on an ‘island’ of rocks in the middle.

Professor Low said: ‘It’s all still unclear exactly what will happen, because we can’t predict with certainty in which direction the rocks will come down from the mountain.

“We are talking about a huge amount of rocks, stones, boulders and of course we hope that when it comes down – and it will at some point – it misses the village.

“But due to the uncertainty we took the safest approach possible and evacuated everyone from inside, people, livestock and now no one is allowed to enter the area under any circumstances.

“We use a system of cameras, monitors and sensors to detect any movement and I watch the events in real time from my office in Zurich and another team is located a few kilometers from Chur in Brienz.

“The worst case scenario is the skid thundering down the slope at about 200 km/h, the speed of an avalanche, and in 30 seconds it will hit Brienz and completely destroy it.

“In this scenario, all buildings would be destroyed, so we have to be careful and get everyone out.”

Professor Low and his team are also keeping a close eye on the weather, and with heavy rain forecast for the rest of the week, there are fears that this could trigger the landslide.

He said: “The question with rainfall is how much are we getting and also what kind of intensity, because that’s going to accelerate any slide possible.

“At some point the side of the mountain will come down, that’s a certainty, but it’s just a matter of when, it could be any time within the next few days or the next few weeks.

“Our best hope is that the slide is controlled to some extent and comes down in several short rock cuts and maybe at a moderate speed of about three feet per hour.”

The village is currently in the ‘red’ phase of the calamity, the evacuation of the village and the surrounding area is a no-go zone while experts monitor the situation.

But in the coming days it is expected to move into the more serious ‘blue’ phase and a stork warning on the council’s website explains: ‘Stay away from the entire Brienz slide area. An event is at hand.”

As part of the security operation, the Swiss Federal Bureau of Civil Aviation also issued a flight ban over the southeastern village of Brienz, close to Davos, which hosts the annual World Economic Forum.

Professor Low explained how since the last ice age, some 18,000 years ago, the side of the mountain, the 2,906-metre-high Lenzerhorn, has been in constant motion at about an inch a year.

But in the last few years, the pace has picked up noticeably with cracks and fissures in the ground and in barns and houses in Brienz, which sits at an elevation of 1,144 m (3,753 ft).

Hermann and Maria Bossi were also among those evacuated from their home and are staying with their son Giorgio in nearby Vazerol.

Over the past decade, he’s seen cracks in his home’s stucco get longer and wider — each repair being a temporary fix lasting only a few weeks.

The cheerful Hermann, 82, told MailOnline: ‘I was born in Brienz and my parents were born in Brienz and we’ve been living with the mountain moving for years but we’ve never evacuated.

‘I have had cracks in my house and shed for years, but from 2017 the situation started to get worse, since then every year I notice that the cracks become a bigger problem and once I was able to put my arm in the air at my elbow.

“But it must be serious if they want us to leave our homes and now we just have to pray to our patron saint Saint Callixtus that we are spared, we have lived with this for years but this time it doesn’t look good.”

More than 100 years ago, the villagers wrote a Latin dedication to Saint Callixtus on the largest bell in the church that bears his name.

It says: ‘Calixt, with your mighty hand hold back the slippery rocks and protect, O holy patron, this place.’

Hermann, who looks after the church, told MailOnline, “In my opinion, St. Calixtus is the main monitor of the landslide, even with all the cameras and monitors in place now.”