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5 missing as rockslide-hit building collapses in Norway
A six-story apartment building collapsed on Wednesday in the west coast city of Aalesund after it was hit by a rock slide, injuring 15 people and leaving five missing, police said.
- AP
- Published: 15:42 March 26, 2008
Oslo: A six-story apartment building collapsed on Wednesday in the west coast city of Aalesund after it was hit by a rock slide, injuring 15 people and leaving five missing, police said.
A second rock slide hit the crumpled building, which was constructed in 2003 and partly built into a steep hillside, hampering the search for survivors.
A fire smoldered amid the debris, police said.
"There has been a new slide in the same place. It hit the building and shook it," Aalesund Police Operations Leader Magne Tjoennoey said.
"The fire has also flared up again and it is making our rescue efforts very difficult."
He said about 20 people were believed to have been inside, based on the building's normal occupancy, when the bottom floors caved in.
Investigators were not sure whether the rock slide "was a direct or indirect cause of the collapse," Tjoennoey said by telephone.
The Aalesund newspaper Sunnmoersposten said residents described the building as seeming to leap forward several yards and then collapse.
Tjoennoey said 15 people were taken to the hospital, two of them with moderate injuries.
The number of people listed as unaccounted for was reduced to five from six after police confirmed that one person feared missing had not been in the building when it collapsed.
Photographs and TV footage from the scene in Aalesund, about 220 miles northwest of Oslo, showed smoke billowing from the twisted bottom floors of the building, with sagging balconies and a contorted glass entryway.
The building was surrounded by rescue personnel using ladders and cranes. Firefighters tried to cool parts of the building with water.
Rescuers brought in dogs to search the debris and residents of a neighboring apartment house were evacuated as a precaution, police said.
Tjoennoey said the search would be difficult because the bottom two floors of the building were badly damaged.
"The bottom floors have collapsed. There is a big risk in going inside, and there is also the risk of fire," he said.
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