HELSINKI (AP) – Rescue workers in Norway on Thursday continued to search for ten people, including children, who were missing a day after a massive landslide hit a residential area near the capital.
Time has run out to find survivors in devastated buildings amid winter weather conditions. Authorities said it was too dangerous to send ground rescue patrols to the devastated area in the town of Ask in the municipality of Gjerdrum, about 25 kilometers northeast of Oslo. Instead, the search was conducted using helicopters, drones and heat cameras.
“We still have hopes of finding people and saving lives,” police spokesman Dag Andre Sylju told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.
There were no reports of casualties, but about ten people were injured, one of them seriously, in what Prime Minister Erna Solberg calls ‘probably one of the biggest landslides we’ve had’.
Officials said at least nine buildings with about 30 apartments were destroyed in the early Wednesday landslide.
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 landslide cuts across a road through Ask, home to about 5,000 people, leaving a deep, crater-like gorge behind which cars cannot pass. Photos and videos showed dramatic scenes of buildings on the edge of the gorge.
The area is known for having many so-called fast clays, a form of clay that can change from solid to liquid form. Experts said the dust of the clay, along with excessive precipitation and damp weather conditions, may have contributed to the landslide.
Norwegian media reported that in 2005 authorities warned the construction companies not to build houses in the area, but eventually houses were built there later in the decade.