I was waiting for the tram in the hauptbahnhof station, but no tram came for minutes. All the traffic is stop , anyone has some information what is going on?

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/zuerich/...story/25777356

Apparently someone set off an alarm by accident...

not really by accident....they are currently trying to figure out if the work they are doing to build the new train lines is making the ground round the train station and Central subside...

Not accidentally. Telemetry data indicates a possible structural problem between the main station and Central, related to the construction of the Weinberg tunnel. The incident is being investigated, and the police will hold a press conference at 21:00. Trams and busses are blocked, trains are not affected.

(Now I finally know why they have all these tiny reflectors on the curbstone around HB. Telemetry! And I thought it was for traffic safety)

...ok, that article has been updated since I posted it! Originally the alarm was thought to be accidental.

The telemetry reflectors are interesting though, I'm going to fit some to my apartment

A tunnel digging machine was thrown back three meters in an accident and this area is not secured now. The tunnel is 10 meters underground and on the surface a 10m x 10m area is affected. It will probably take a while until the trams can again roll across Bahnhofplatz.

Knowing the above I'm not sure how much the telemetry actually was involved in "detecting" the problem... Maybe they're useful for fixing it? (The telemetry was mentioned on Tele Züri's re-run of a reportage they made in March)

Here's a video on the Tages Anzeiger site explaining how the sensors work:
http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/zuerich/...story/28049346 (Swiss German)

They're expecting total chaos for the morning commute.

Diversions on the tram and bus network: http://www.zvv.ch/en/

Interesting, I haven't heard about the water-level system before. Regarding the morning commute, I don't think it will be too bad, I'm optimistic after having read the plan on the ZVV website.

Thanks guys. If I hadn't read this this morning I could well have been late for work.

Anyone affected by the traffic chaos this morning? Roads coming into the city from the dark side of the lake (as opposed to the Gold Coast) seem to have been affected, Escherstrasse and Mythenquai are solid -my office looks out onto Escherstrasse and there's still lots of traffic.

The newspapers were spoiled for choice for headlines today. Hauptbahnhof is about to fall into a giant hole and "Schweinegrippe" is one alert level below pantastic.

Power to their column inches...

Both car and tram traffic is back to normal! The tunnel was stabilised with 30 cubic metres of concrete. The drilling machine is stuck too, specialists will sort it out later.