Last Thursday a landslide demolished several homes in the Oppland country in Norway, according to accounts in Aftenposten. Although the landslide resulted in the closure of the E6 highway there were no injuries reported.
Operations leader for the Gudbrands police district, Edmund Toftehagen, said: “We were notified about the landslide at about 3:00 a.m.”
Residents in the homes affected by the landslide, which was 50 metres wide and 300 metres in length, were successfully evacuated before the slide hit the area.
The risk of further landslides in the area is still high and several other landslides have been reported in the region. On Friday morning another landslide hit between Otta and Sjoa, requiring the evacuation of one farm house. Experts are being called into the region in order to evaluate the risk of further slides.
Police speculate that it is water in the ground causing the slides rather than floods, which are not present in the region.
Those who have been evacuated from their homes as a result of the slides are currently being assisted by the Red Cross and accommodated in the Otta Hotell.
Landslides have been a reoccurring problem in Norway for the past several years. Five people were killed in March after a mass of rocks came loose on the mountainside behind an apartment building and caused it to collapse, killing five.