Less than two days before the New Year, massive amounts of earth rush through a snow-covered village in southern Norway. Emergency services have been looking for missing people ever since. Now there is a first sad find.
Two and a half days after a major landslide in southern Norway, rescue workers have found a first fatality. The police chief Roy Alkvist announced on Friday afternoon at a press conference. The police initially did not want to comment on the person’s age and gender.
The landslide occurred early Wednesday morning in Ask in the municipality of Gjerdrum, around 40 kilometers northeast of Oslo. Helicopter shots show the extent of the crater. (You can see the pictures in the video above or here). At least ten people were injured. Nine houses collapsed as a result of the departure, others on the edge of the resulting crater were at great risk of collapse. Around 1,000 people have been brought to safety so far. Ten people were missing before the dead man was announced, including children.
Winter weather makes finding more missing people difficult
In addition to the Norwegian winter weather, the search for the missing persons was made more difficult by the occurrence of the underground: For a long time, parts of the disaster area were so unstable that it was too dangerous to walk into them. It was only on Friday that emergency services could be sent to the red zone of the disaster area. Survivors had previously been searched for with helicopters and drones from the air.
Norway was hit by a similar landslide in the summer. At that time, the exit near Alta in the far north of the country pulled several houses and huts into the sea. People were not injured. As it was then, it is now expected that the nature of the ground has something to do with the landslide. The exact reason for the departure of Ask is so far unclear.
