Landslide buried houses in mud; 10 people are still missing

Rescuers on Thursday used helicopters, drones and dogs to scan unstable ground the day after a major landslide destroyed houses in a village near the Norwegian capital Oslo. At least ten people have not been reported and 10 others injured, local officials said.

An entire hill collapsed overnight in Ask, in the municipality of Gjerdrum, 25 km northeast of the capital. Homes were smashed and buried in dense, dark clay that was still too unstable to reach rescuers on foot on Thursday, Reuters news agency reported.

Temperatures below freezing and snowfall made efforts to sharpen the remaining structures and find the missing even more challenging. Some houses faltered at the edge of the crater. Several buildings fell over the edge on Wednesday.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who traveled to the town with about 1,000 people on Wednesday, described the landslide as ‘one of the biggest’ the country has ever seen.

“It’s a dramatic experience to be here,” Solberg told reporters, expressing particular concern about those still missing.

“The situation is still so unstable with the mud that it is not yet possible to do anything other than helicopter rescues,” she added.

Norwegian media said 700 people had been evacuated from their homes, and the municipality had warned that as many as 1,500 needed the area to leave safety.

“We are still searching for survivors,” said Roger Pettersen, chief of police operations at the site, adding that children and adults were among those still missing.

Police said ten people were injured, one of whom was transferred to Oslo with serious injuries.

Pettersen said Wednesday that emergency calls came from people who said their entire homes were moving inside with them. Overnight helicopters used heat-scanning technology to search for people, and they dropped several rescuers on structures as part of their efforts.

“There are dramatic reports and the situation is serious,” Pettersen said.

According to the Norwegian Directorate of Water Resources and Energy (NPA), there was a so-called “fast clay slide” of about 328 to 766 meters.

“This is the largest landslide in Norway in recent times, given the number of homes involved and the number of evacuated,” NPA spokesperson Laila Hoivik told AFP

Rapid clay is a type of clay found in Norway and Sweden, which can collapse and become liquid if overemphasized.

“The area has been surveyed before and it is known to contain fast clay. The possibility of similar large slides in the area is currently small,” Hoivik said.

Reuters quoted Norwegian broadcaster TV2 as saying that a geological survey in 2005 found the clay and considered the area unsuitable for residential development, but that a few years later new houses were built on the land.

Norwegian King Harald said in a rare public statement that the accident made a deep impression on him.

“My thoughts are with all those affected, the injured, those who have lost their homes and are now living in fear and uncertainty over the full extent of the disaster,” he said.