HELSINKI (AP) – Rescue teams searching for survivors four days after a landslide swept away houses in a Norwegian town found no signs of life on Saturday amid devastated buildings and rubble.
Three bodies have been recovered, but searchers are still searching for seven more people who are believed to be missing. The landslide in the village of Ask is the worst in modern Norwegian history and has shocked citizens in the Nordic country.
Search teams patrolled with dogs, while helicopters and drones with cameras that detect heat flew amid severe winter conditions over the devastated hill in Ask, a town of 5,000 people, 25 kilometers northeast of Oslo.
Norwegian police have promised not to reduce the search, although a rescue team from neighboring Sweden has already returned.
Local police chief Ida Melbo Oeystese said it was possible to find survivors in airbags in the destroyed buildings.
“Medically, you can survive a few days if you have air,” she told reporters at a news conference.
By the end of Saturday, a second and third body had been found after the first one was discovered Friday. Only one Dalmatian dog has so far been rescued alive from the ruins.
King Harald V, Queen Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon plan to visit the disaster area on Sunday to pay tribute to the victims and to meet residents and rescue workers. The 83-year-old monarch said in his New Year’s speech that the royal family was deeply affected by the tragedy.
Norwegian police have published the names and birth years of the ten people who were initially reported missing, including a 2-year-old child. Officials have not yet identified the three bodies recovered.
The landslide cut across a road through Ask early Wednesday, leaving a deep, crater-like gorge. Photos and videos showed buildings hanging at the edge of the gorge, which became 700 meters long and 300 meters wide. At least nine buildings with more than 30 apartments were destroyed.
The rescue operation is hampered by the limited number of daylight hours in Norway at this time of year and the fear of further erosion. The ground is fragile on the site and cannot contain the weight of rescue equipment, including a heavy vehicle of the Norwegian army.
More than 1,000 people have been evacuated, and officials said up to 1,500 people could be relocated from the area amid fears of further landslides.
The exact cause of the accident is not yet known, but the Gjerdrum municipality, where Ask is located, is known for having very fast clay, a material that can change from solid to liquid form. Experts said the dust of the clay, along with excessive precipitation and the humid weather for Norway at this time of year, may have contributed to the landslide.
The Norwegian authorities warned people in 2005 not to build residential buildings in the area, but eventually houses were built there later in the decade.
Spokesperson Toril Hofshagen of the Norwegian Directorate of Water Resources and Energy calls the landslide unique in its destruction.
“Not since 1893 has there been a rapid clay grass of this dimension in Norway,” Hofshagen told the media on Saturday.