Up to 108 missing after US mudslide

BBC News online -- 24 March 2014

Authorities confirm that 108 people have been reported missing

Authorities say they have 108 reports of people missing or unaccounted for after Saturday's huge landslide in the north-western US state of Washington.

Eight bodies have been recovered so far after the 54m (177ft) deep wall of mud swept near the town of Oso, about 90km (55 miles) north of Seattle.

Search crews have worked day and night, using helicopters in the dangerous conditions that destroyed 30 homes.
Several people, including an infant, were critically injured.

Snohomish County emergency management director John Pennington said the figure did not necessarily represent the total number of injuries or fatalities.

The wreckage of a home after the mudslide

The landslide is said to have destroyed 30 homes in the area

The authorities say the landslide was caused by recent heavy rain

He said the list had been consolidated from a number of sources.
"It's a soft 108," Mr Pennington told a news conference, reports the Associated Press news agency.
"We have not found anyone alive on this pile since Saturday," he added.
Snohomish County fire chief Travis Hots told reporters: "The situation is very grim."
'Gone in three seconds' Authorities have continued their search-and-rescue operations amid a tangled debris field that Washington Governor Jay Inslee labelled "a square mile of total devastation".

Oso Community Church displays a sign reading "pray with us for our community"

A man walks across the rubble on the east side of the mudslide

  The thick mud covered a square mile

 

An 81-year-old man and a six-month-old boy were said to be in critical condition at a Seattle hospital on Sunday.
An eyewitness told the Daily Herald that he was driving on the road near Oso and had to quickly brake to avoid the mudslide.

"I just saw the darkness coming across the road. Everything was gone in three seconds," Paulo Falcao told the newspaper.

Robin Youngblood, another witness, told the Seattle Times: "All of a sudden there was a wall of mud. Then it hit and we were rolling.

"The house was in sticks. We were buried under things, and we dug ourselves out."

The landslide cut off the city of Darrington and clogged the north fork of the Stillaguamish River.
This prompted fears of severe flooding downstream if the build-up of water behind the debris breaks through suddenly.

The authorities say the landslide was caused by recent heavy rain.
The area has had problems in the past with unstable land.