COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – Norwegian authorities said on Tuesday they had given up hope of finding survivors of a landslide that swept homes in a residential area nearly a week ago, killing seven people.
Three people are still missing from the December 30 disaster that destroyed at least nine buildings with more than 30 apartments in the village of Ask, located 25 kilometers northeast of Oslo. Landslides have been among the worst in modern Norwegian history.
“I must say with great sadness that we have no hope of finding people alive after the landslide,” said local police chief Ida Melbo Oeystese.
“We did everything we could. But this natural disaster had significant forces. Those who died died relatively quickly, “she added, visibly moved.
Search teams will continue to “work to find all the missing,” Oeystese said.
The police chief spoke hours after a small dog was found alive in the rubble, raising hopes for rescuers. The dog was found “in good condition” late Monday in an area where rescuers worked, police spokesman Ivar Myrboe said.
Another smaller landslide, just before Tuesday, at noon, forced the search terms to evacuate the place and no one was injured, police said. A rescuer, Kenneth Wangen, said the landslide was not “dramatic” and that search terms had received prior warning from drones and other emergency personnel.
Geologists will evaluate the site before research continues, authorities said.
Since the initial landslide, dog search teams have searched through debris at freezing temperatures, while helicopters and drones with heat detection cameras have flown over the devastated hill in the village of 5,000 inhabitants.
At least 1,000 people were evacuated. Some buildings are now hanging on the edge of a deep ravine, which has reached a length of 700 meters (2,300 feet) and a width of 300 meters (1,000 feet).
The exact cause of the landslide is not yet known, but the area has a lot of fast clay, which can change quickly from solid to liquid when disturbed. Experts said that fast clay, combined with excessive rainfall and wet winter weather, could have contributed to the landslide.
In 2005, Norwegian authorities warned people not to build residential buildings in the Ask area, saying it was a “high-risk area” for landslides, but houses were built later in the decade.
A landslide in central Norway in 1893 killed 116 people. It seems to have been up to 40 times larger than the one in Ask, where somewhere between 1.4 and 2 million cubic meters of land collapsed.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg said she received the news of the abandoned search for survivors “with great sadness” and that her thoughts were with the friends and families of the victims.