COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – Norwegian officials insisted Monday that there was “still hope” of finding survivors in air pockets five days after a landslide killed at least seven people as it carried away homes in a village north of the capital. Three people are still missing.
Police spokesman Roger Pettersen said search efforts in the landslide-hit village of Ask, 25 kilometers (16 miles) northeast of Oslo, are still considered “a rescue operation.” But only bodies have been found in recent days.
The freezing temperatures in the region “work against us, but we’ve been very clear in our advice to the (rescue workers) that as long as there are hollows where the missing have resided, it is possible to survive,” said Dr. Halvard Stave, who is participating in the rescue operation.
Temperatures in Ask were minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 degrees Fahrenheit) Monday.
“I would still describe the situation as very unreal”, says Anders Oestensen, the mayor of the municipality of Gjerdrum, where Ask is located.
Authorities said one victim was found on Friday, three on Saturday and three others on Sunday. Ten people have been injured, one of them seriously.
Search teams patrolled dogs as helicopters and drones with heat-detecting cameras flew over the devastated hill in Ask, a village of 5,000 hit by the worst landslide in modern Norwegian history. At least 1,000 people were evacuated.
The landslide early Wednesday cut a road through Ask, leaving a deep, crater-like ravine. Some buildings now hang on the edge of the ravine, which became 700 meters long and 300 meters wide. At least nine buildings with more than 30 apartments were destroyed.
“This is utterly awful,” said King Harald V after the Norwegian royals visited the landslide site on Sunday.
The limited number of daylight hours in Norway at this time of the year and fears of further erosion have hampered rescue operations. The ground on site is fragile and cannot support the weight of heavy rescue equipment.
The exact cause of the accident is not yet known, but the area is known for the large amount of fast clay, a material that can change from solid to liquid form. Experts said the rapid clay, combined with excessive rainfall and damp winter weather, may have contributed to the landslide.
In 2005, Norwegian authorities warned people not to build residential buildings in the area. They said it was “a high risk zone” for landslides, but eventually houses were built later in the decade.
Norway’s biggest landslide occurred in 1893 in Verdal, north of Trondheim in central Norway, killing 116 people, the VG newspaper reported. It was reportedly up to 40 times bigger than the one in Ask, where somewhere between 1.4 million and 2 million cubic meters of land fell.