Norwegian authorities have no news of more than 20 people after a landslide in a small town north of Oslo on Wednesday around 4 a.m.
The flow affected 21 ha, and swept away several houses in Gjerdrum, a town of 5,000 inhabitants 25 km north-east of the capital.
Ten people were injured, one seriously;
she was hospitalized in Oslo with respiratory problems.
The other nine were taken to the emergency room for hypothermia problems, which are now resolved.
Houses washed away
“Several houses were washed away by the landslide.
The emergency services, with the assistance of the Norwegian Civil Defense and the army, are carrying out evacuations, ”police said on Twitter.
A rescue center covering the south of the country posted an aerial photo of the area taken at dawn.
Several houses, gardens, cars, have sunk, and several houses are on the edge of the precipice.
But the edges of the landslide continue to unravel and there is no way to stop or control the movement until the subsoil has stabilized.
#Ask #Gjerdrum Bilde av rasområdet tatt av 330 skvadronen.
pic.twitter.com/VeXZ4eoU6t
- HRS Sør-Norge (@HRSSorNorge) December 30, 2020
Almost 700 people had to be evacuated from their homes.
As of noon as of Wednesday, 21 people could not be contacted again, according to reports.
"We do not know if these people are in the affected area, if they are gone on vacation or can not contact the police," she said in a statement.
A desaster "
The police asked the evacuees not to try to reach their home.
This would "put them in grave danger and lead to unnecessary use of our resources".
#Gjerdrum #Ask;
politiet ber innstendig om at INGEN beboere tar seg tilbake til evakuert sone og sine hjem.
Det er forbundet med stor fare og fører til unødig bruk av våre ressurser.
- Politiet i Øst (@politietost) December 30, 2020
In the early afternoon, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and her Minister of Justice visited nearby.
She spoke of a "disaster".
“It pains us to see how the forces of nature have ravaged Gjerdrum.
My thoughts go out to all those affected by the landslide, ”the head of government reacted in the morning on social networks.
The cause of this slippage is for the moment mysterious.
But it affected an area 700 m long by 300 m wide, making it probably, according to Erna Solberg, the largest in the modern geological history of Norway.
Last June, eight houses were pushed out to sea by a flow of land in the far north of Norway.
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VIDEO. Norway: last June, a powerful landslide swept 8 houses into the sea