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Norway landslide kills at least seven, three missing
A large landslide struck a small town in southeastern Norway, burying homes and leaving several people missing, police and local media said on Wednesday, 30 December 2020. The landslide hit the town of Ask, around 40 kilometres north of Oslo, early in the morning. Estimated to be 700 metres long and 300 metres wide, the landslide created a huge crater. All available emergency resources have been deployed, including helicopters. Police, emergency services, the military and the Red Cross are assisting the rescue effort. Seven bodies have now been found, four bodies were discovered on Friday and Saturday and another three on Sunday. Police said at least 10 people were injured, with one being transferred to Oslo with serious injuries. More than 20 people are unaccounted for, the number of residents of the landslide site. At least 700 people were evacuated. A shortage of daylight in the Norwegian winter has proved one of the challenges at the scene in Gjerdrum Municipality. Rescuers are also contending with freezing temperatures and the clay ground proving too unstable for emergency workers to walk on. Helicopters and drones spent two days searching the area before Police Commander Roy Alkvist said one or two houses appeared safe to enter. Rescuers began moving into the danger zone on Styrofoam boards; the bright orange boards were laid down on the mud in a domino-effect as rescuers tried to reach the wrecked homes. Norwegian rescue group Norsk Folkehjelp Follo said they had sent a total of 40 crew and nine emergency ambulances to assist with search and rescue efforts. More than 30 homes were destroyed, with others teetering on the edges of the deep crater that was left by the landslide.
The landslide was a so-called "quick clay slide" measuring about 300m by 700m, a spokeswoman for the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) told media. Quick clay is a kind of clay found in Norway and Sweden that can collapse and behave as a fluid when it comes under stress. Broadcaster NRK said heavy rainfall may have made the soil unstable but questions have since emerged over why construction was permitted in the area. A 2005 geological survey labelled the area as at high risk of landslides, according to a report seen by the broadcaster TV2. Despite this, the homes were built there three years later. Norwegian officials insisted Monday that there was “still hope” of finding survivors in air pockets five days after a landslide killed at least seven people as it carried away homes in a village north of the capital. Three people are still missing. Police spokesman Roger Pettersen said search efforts are still considered “a rescue operation.” But only bodies have been found in the past few days. The region’s below-freezing temperatures are “working against us, but we have been very clear in our advice to the (rescuers) that as long as there are cavities where the missing may have stayed, it is possible to survive,” said Dr Halvard Stave, who is taking part in the rescue operation. Temperatures in Ask were minus eight degrees Celsius on Monday. Sources: Associated Press, Euro News, Deutche Welle |
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