COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – Norwegian officials insisted on Monday that there was still “hope” of finding survivors in the air pockets five days after a landslide killed at least seven people while taking houses to a village in northern North Korea. capital. Three people are still missing.
Police spokesman Roger Pettersen said search efforts in the village of Ask, which is on a landslide, are still considered a “rescue operation”, 25 kilometers northeast of Oslo. But in recent days only bodies have been found.
Temperatures below freezing in the region “work against us, but in our advice to (rescuers) we have been very clear that as long as there are cavities in which the missing may have remained, it is possible to survive,” he said. say Dr. Halvard Stave, who is involved in the rescue operation.
Temperatures in Ask were minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday.
“I would still describe the situation as very unreal,” said Anders Oestensen, the mayor of Gjerdrum municipality, where Ask is located.
Authorities said one victim was found Friday, three more on Saturday and three more on Sunday. Ten people were injured, one seriously.
Search crews patrolled with dogs while helicopters and drones with heat detection cameras flew over the hillside of Ask, a village of 5,000 that was affected by the worst landslide in modern Norwegian history. At least 1,000 people were evacuated.
The landslide from early Wednesday crossed a road through Ask, leaving a deep, crater-like ravine. Some buildings are hung on the edge of the ravine, which grew to 700 meters (2,300 feet) long and 300 meters (1,000 feet) wide. At least nine buildings with more than 30 apartments were destroyed.
“This is completely terrible,” King Harald V said after the Norwegian royals visited the site of the landslide on Sunday.
The limited number of hours of daylight in Norway at this time of year and fears of further erosion have hampered rescue operations. The terrain is fragile on site and cannot support the weight of heavy rescue equipment.
The exact cause of the accident is not yet known, but the area is known to have a lot of fast clay, a material that can change from solid to liquid. Experts said the fast clay, combined with excessive rainfall and a humid winter climate, may have contributed to the landslide.
In 2005, Norwegian authorities warned people not to build residential buildings in the area, saying it was “a high-risk area” for landslides, but houses were finally built there later in the decade.
The largest landslide in Norway occurred in 1893 in Verdal, north of Trondheim, in the middle of Norway, killing 116 people, the VG newspaper reported. It was reported to be up to 40 times larger than that of Ask, where it fell between 1.4 and 2 million cubic meters of earth.