From the railroad line it overlooks, the cliff at La Praz appears perfectly smooth, devoid of vegetation and roughness. Nothing protrudes from the wall, which has been purged of everything that threatened to fall. The only thing that can be made out are the thousands of square meters of wire mesh that have been anchored to the side of the cliff to prevent any future rockfalls.

On August 27, 2023, between the villages of Saint-André and Freney, five kilometers from the town of Modane in the French Alps, the mountain collapsed. Around 15,000 cubic meters of rock tumbled down the steep slope, ending up on the railroad tracks where they disappear into a railway gallery, then on the 1006 road below and, a little further still, on the pillars of the A43 highway's viaduct that spans the valley.

After 19 months of work carried out by the local authorities and the national rail company's infrastructure branch, SNCF Réseau, at a cost of €13 million, trains started running again on Monday, March 31. The highway had reopened two weeks after the landslide; road 1006, on the other hand, will have to wait a few more months.

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