Rescuers recovered the bodies of seven people killed in Norway last week and are still searching for survivors, police said Monday.
Three people are missing after the disaster in the town of Ask, about 30 km northeast of Oslo, police said. Officials said the landslide Wednesday, which led to the evacuation of people from the area, was related to rapid clay, which could collapse into a liquid state when overloaded.
“We are desperate about the terrible and tragic outcome of this slide,” said Anders Ostensen, the mayor of Gjerdrum, the local municipality that includes Ask, told reporters on Monday. “The situation is still unreal for us, but we are trying to turn things around, and we have started to return to normalcy.”
About 1,000 people were evacuated from Ask after clay soil in the area collapsed, swallowing at least seven homes in mudslides and injuring 10 people.
The army and firefighters help with rescue efforts, which are complicated by short days with limited daylight, cold weather and the difficulty navigating the clay, which remains unstable in places.
Six of the victims, whose bodies were recovered Friday and the past few days, have been identified. They are: Eirik Gronolen (31), Lisbeth Neraas (54) and her son Marius Brustad (29) and Bjorn-Ivar Grymyr Jansen (40), Charlot Grymyr Jansen (31) and their 2-year-old daughter, Alma Grymyr Jansen. One body found has not yet been named.
Three others are still missing.
King Harald V and Queen Sonja visited the site of the landslide on Sunday and they met rescue workers, local volunteers and survivors. “I struggle to say anything because it’s absolutely awful,” King Harald said. They thanked rescuers and said they were impressed with the assistance.
As of Monday, it was unclear exactly what caused the clay to collapse.
“We will have to evaluate what happened during the construction in Gjerdrum,” Tina Bru, Norway’s minister of energy and oil, told NRK on Monday. “It’s natural to check the rules and see what we can learn from this so that something like this does not happen again.”
Although landslides in Norway are relatively rare, another in the northern region of the country swept at least eight buildings into the sea in June, but no one was injured. According to government figures, more than 110,000 people in Norway live in areas where there is a danger of such landslides. The village of Ask was in a high-risk area for such landslides, but officials did not consider the area unsafe for construction.
The Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, an independent research center assessing the region for landslide risks for developers and the government, has published reports setting out its research in the region from 2003 to 2007. He advised that a series of measures were needed to area. The institute said it was investigating documents related to the disaster, and police will begin an investigation.
Developers have told local media that they followed the institute’s recommendations, which include removing soil from higher ground to reduce clay site loads and protecting against erosion, during construction in Ask.
Water and power are still outside the area, local officials said.
“The town has suffered a tough blow,” said John-Magnus Restad, a pilot who lives about a mile north of the site with his wife and son. He added that they were not sure they would stay in Ask. Although they knew the area lay on fast clay, he said he never believed a move of this relationship could happen. ‘
But the decision was clear to Trine Johnsgard, 60, who said she and her husband, Kjetil Johnsgard, who lives about 80 meters from the gorge, were lucky to escape from their home with their dog Linus, a wallet and a cell phone.
“I hope we do not have to withdraw because we dare not,” she said. Johnsgard told the VG newspaper, adding that she was concerned about the value of her home, in a street called Nystulia, where many of the missing lived. “Nobody wants to move to Nystulia now.”