On 6 February 2021, across parts of Switzerland, people awoke to a strange yellowish light and brown skies.

The strange light and brown sky are caused by sand from the Sahara desert. It is a well-known meteorological phenomenon that occurs around three times a year in Switzerland, according to SRF Meteo.

Areas currently most affected by it are in western Switzerland and include Geneva, Vaud, Valais, and Fribourg.

According to SRF Meteo, the sand came mainly from the northwest of Africa, a region containing Mauritania, Mali, and Algeria. Most of the sand is floating airborne between 2km and 5km from the ground, according to the weather service. It takes between a week and two days for the dust to travel from the desert to Europe. The largest particles land on the ground while the smallest remain airborne and continue their journey northward.

At the measuring station on the A2 motorway in Erstfeld, where we live, up to 140 micrograms of fine dust per cubic meter were measured. In Altdorf, the next large city, even a peak value of 214. That is about ten to twenty times more than under normal circumstances. But the absolute front runner was the measuring station on amazing Jungfrau Joch. This measuring station is located very high, 11,350 feet above sea level, and therefore measures practically no particulate matter under normal circumstances. On February 6th, however, she was in the middle of a cloud of dust. On Saturday afternoon, fine dust pollution of 768 micrograms per cubic meter was measured!

No health effects to be expected

The health effects of this short but high level of fine dust pollution are likely to be minor. Saharan dust can also act as a fertilizer. Especially in rainforests and partly in oceans it can be observed that nutrients get into the environment through regular input of Saharan dust.

The phenomenon accompanies a warm air weather system known as the Foehn.

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Jeder, der aus einem anderen Land in die USA fliegt, muss einen negativen Test für das COVID-19-Virus nachweisen. Die Zentren für die Kontrolle und Prävention von Krankheiten haben in den letzten Tagen die neue Regelung angekündigt, da neue Fälle und Todesfälle aufgrund der Pandemie im ganzen Land weiter zunehmen.

Mehr als 24 Millionen Fälle wurden gemeldet.

Mehr als 500.000 Menschenleben wurden gefordert. Der Katalysator für das neue Protokoll ist die Entwicklung eines Stammes des tödlichen Virus (Delta), von dem angenommen wird, dass er sich leichter ausbreitet. Diese Wendung hätte nicht nötig sein müssen, um eine solche vernünftige Maßnahme zu veranlassen, die sowohl für US-Bürger als auch für ausländische Reisende gilt.

Sie tritt am 26. Januar in Kraft.

Nach den neuen Beschränkungen müssen Fluggäste innerhalb von drei Tagen nach ihrem Flug nach Amerika einen COVID-19-Test erhalten und einen schriftlichen Nachweis des Tests vorlegen, ohne dass dokumentiert ist, dass sie den Virus bereits hatten. Das neue Protokoll wird die Sicherheit erhöhen und möglicherweise das internationale Reisen anregen. Staaten im ganzen Land sollten diesem Beispiel folgen und diese vernünftige Maßnahme ergreifen. Etwa die Hälfte der Staaten des Landes verfügt über einige Maßnahmen: eine Anforderung für einen negativen Test, ein Versprechen zur Selbstquarantäne. Alaska gehört zu den fleißigsten in seinen Beschränkungen. Alle nicht-alaskischen Einwohner, die in den Staat einreisen, müssen eine Reiseerklärung und einen Selbstisolationsplan einreichen. Darüber hinaus müssen Reisende den Nachweis eines qualifizierenden negativen COVID-19-Tests haben oder 250 USD für einen COVID-19-Test und die Selbstquarantäne zahlen, bis die Ergebnisse vorliegen. Und die Kosten gehen zu ihren Lasten. Dies ist ein Beispiel für einen Staat, der die Pandemie ernst nimmt. Die Ermahnungen, aus nicht wesentlichen Gründen auf Flugreisen zu verzichten, sind eindeutig unbeachtet geblieben, wie der Anstieg der Flüge in den Ferien zeigt.

Angesichts dieser Realität sollte das reisende Publikum – innerhalb und außerhalb der USA – nachweisen müssen, dass es keine tödliche Krankheit von einem Land in ein anderes oder von einem Staat in einen anderen mit sich führt.

The new tunnel reduces travel times between Ticino and German-speaking Switzerland. And thanks to fast S-Bahn connections, it turns the southern canton into a “Città Ticino”. But some problems remain unsolved.

The time has come. The official opening of the new Ceneri Base Tunnel will be celebrated this Friday – in view of the coronavirus and the necessary protective measures, however, on a modest scale. Only a few dozen of the originally 650 invited guests will be there. Federal President Simonetta Sommaruga, Federal Councilor Ignazio Cassis, and others will officially hand over the tunnel to the operator SBB. Commissioning will follow in December with the changeover to the 2021 timetable.

Ex-Federal Councilor Moritz Leuenberger at the start of construction work in 2006

The Ceneri Base Tunnel, the New Alpine Transversal (Neat) is completed, construction of the century that took 28 years to complete – the Ceneri 14 years alone – and devoured around 22 billion francs. A flat railway through the Alps, “which, as a contribution to the protection of the Alps, should make an important contribution to shifting freight traffic from road to rail”, as Minister of Transport Sommaruga tirelessly repeated.

For rail customers, travel times between north and south are reduced by around 20 minutes:

A drive from Zurich to Lugano will take just under two hours.

The train ride from Lucerne to Lugano will now take 1 hour and 40 minutes.

A EuroCity train between Zurich and the northern Italian metropolis of Milan now takes 3 hours and 17 minutes.

That is fast, but still a long way from the promises that the Federal Council made on the Neat in the 1992 referendum vote. In the voting booklet at the time, it was said: “The NEAT gives us access to the European transport network of tomorrow. From Zurich, Milan can be reached in a good 2 hours, Paris and Frankfurt in 3 hours, London and Rome in just under 5 1/2 hours. ”

Miners celebrating the major breakthrough in 2016

Speeds of up to 250 km / h: the base tunnel in numbers

The Ceneri Base Tunnel runs from Camorino near Bellinzona to Vezia near Lugano. With a length of 15.4 kilometers, the tunnel is the third and third longest tunnel in the New Alpine Transversal (Neat) after the Gotthard (56 km) and Lötschberg Base Tunnels (34.6 km). For safety reasons, as with the Gotthard, two single-track tubes were built for the Ceneri, which led to a massive increase in costs. These are 40 meters apart and are connected to each other every 325 meters by 48 crosscuts. The overburden with mountains in the Ceneri zone is a maximum of 800 meters. The excavated material reached 7.9 million tons. 900 kilometers of copper cable, 10,500 kilometers of fiber optics, and 66.6 kilometers of track were laid.

Visiting the construction site of the tunnel in February 2017