Switzerland hit by heavy snowfall in 66 years

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Switzerland hit by heavy snowfall in 66 years

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Swiss officials are coordinating World Economic Forum amidst heaviest snow in 66 years.

25 January,2012 05:35 pm

Thousands of Swiss military and police officials have been building security barriers using snow, to prevent demonstrators from gatecrashing the 42nd World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.Some 3,500 military personnel are on hand to provide security to the nearly 2,600 delegates, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who arrived at the Alpine ski resort for the annual meeting for global political and business leaders.A Swiss army spokesman noted that the heavy snowfalls over the past two weeks have made putting up the 11-mile ring of steel around downtown Davos an arduous task.Street plows are dumping tons of snow on the frozen Lake Davos to clear roads for vehicles transporting participants from hotels to the conference center.Davos saw 16 inches of fresh snow overnight, with roadside drifts already reaching heights of over eight feet.Heavy snowfalls over the past two months have pushed average snow depths in the Alpine town to 1.55 meters, the second-highest since data was first compiled 66 years ago, according to the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos.The Institute said that risks from avalanches are mounting as the total accumulation of snowfall over the winter has hit records, and drifts are reaching almost twice as high as last year.