At least eight missing after mudslide hits village near Swiss-Italian border

Rescue workers have used a helicopter and dogs to search for at least eight people still unaccounted for in a Swiss Alpine valley a day after a mudslide and rockslide hit a small village near the Italian border.

The village of Bondo, about 80 miles north of Milan, has been evacuated.

The slide on Wednesday morning sent around four million cubic metres (140 million cubic feet) of material crashing down, causing an impact equivalent to 3.0 on the Richter scale, senior police official Andrea Mittner said.

Police in the canton of Graubuenden said buildings were damaged, and images from the scene showed a trail of destruction left by a river of mud and stone.

Officers initially said there were no injuries.

However, police said on Thursday that they have not been able to reach eight people who may have been in the Bondasca valley at the time of the slide – nationals of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Six of those people have been reported missing by relatives, none of them children.

Mr Mittner said a Swiss army helicopter searched the valley during the night, but found nothing.

On Thursday, workers began searching with dogs but did not immediately find anyone.

Around 120 people were involved in the operation – police, firefighters, troops and others. Mr Mittner described the missing people as “Alpinists and walkers”.