After the excavation and slope stabilization work for the new building of the “Neighbor Capsule Hotel” in Zermatt was completed last autumn, the tunnel excavation began at the beginning of May. The future horizontal tunnel will be almost 30 m long from the current portal area and runs completely in the rock.

At the end of the horizontal tunnel, the excavation of the vertical shaft will be excavated, which will have an excavation height of more than 30 m. The vertical shaft will be used to access the existing plots of land on which new buildings will be built in the future.

The excavation and excavation work is complicated by the fact that natural asbestos was found in the rock. This requires the implementation of a safety and sampling concept to, on the one hand, prevent people from coming into contact with asbestos fibers in the air and, on the other hand, to determine how and where the excavated material must be disposed of or whether it can be reused.

The contractor is Ulrich Imboden AG, which called in Gasser Felstechnik AG for the complex securing and excavation work. Our office is responsible for construction management in terms of geological engineering.