Storm Burglind (Eleanor) made landfall in Switzerland this morning. What began as a windy morning, soon turns into gale force winds of ~150 km/h and heavy rains. The windows in the apartment are rattling so violently, I feel they will break at any instant. I step outside into the balcony.. It's hard to stand there, you almost get blown away. The howling winds have turned the normally placid lake into a raging monster, with huge waves crashing full force into the shoreline.

Later in the afternoon, after the storm has quietened, we head out to Seelisberg, to check on our "House on the Rocks". Hardly 10 mins into our drive, we have to turn back as the road to Emmetten is blocked due to uprooted trees. With crossed fingers we hope for the best in Seelisberg..

Next day, after the roads have been cleared, we're finally able to make our way to Seelisberg.. All along the road, we see parts of uprooted trees. Storm Burglind has wreaked havoc in Switzerland and has felled around 1.3 million cubic metres of wood in Swiss forests. Quite a sight awaits us when we reach closer to our House. Not only is the access road to our property blocked by fallen trees, about half of the old trees in our property have been uprooted. The "Natural Tree Pagoda" on the picnic place no longer exists, the tops of three fir trees have fallen down, one narrowly missing our roof by a couple of meters (Whew!!). The fairy tale pathway to the house from the parking is totally blocked by uprooted trees.. 

It's sad to see these old trees go.. in an instant, these massive tree trunks have been twisted and broken like matchsticks.. The branches of the fallen trees are buried ~1.5 meters deep into the earth. One can imagine the force with which the trees fell down.

We light a couple of candles for the trees that fell and bow silently to the mighty power of the wind and to the trees who had to go suddenly like this. Our property has totally changed.. Guess the Universe has a different plan. 

One of the neighbour's roof has disappeared.. we're told that the entire roof blew off.. Luckily the house itself seems intact...!

Jan 05: Some of the trees lying on our access road are being removed, so the workers can come to the house and continue their work.. A picture is worth a thousand words, so i'll zip up and let the pictures do the talking..