(Photos off my TV screen)
I don't know how rar and wide the news of this event has spread over the world (if at all), but around 1½ hour after midnight on 23 September, a massive landslide occurred in southwest Sweden, causing severe damage to the motorway [E6] between Sweden's second largest city Gothenburg, and Norway's capital Oslo. Seeing images from it on TV, it seems miraculous to me that (from what I've heard) no one was killed. (Had it happened in the daytime, with more traffic, it could have been a lot worse.)
According to the news agency Reuters (23 Sept):
A large chunk of a motorway in southwest Sweden collapsed overnight, causing three people to be taken to hospital with light injuries, police said on Saturday.
The landslide damaged the motorway between Sweden's second-biggest city Gothenburg and Norway's capital Oslo, near the small town of Stenungsund, around 50 km north of Gothenburg on Sweden's west coast.
"The hardest hit parts of the landslide area measure around 150 x 100 meters. In total, however, the landslide has affected an area of around 700 x 200 meters," the Gothenburg Rescue Services said in a statement.
The slide affected around ten vehicles, a wooded area, a business area with a gas station and a fast food restaurant, the rescue services said.
"A number of people have been helped out of vehicles in the slide area with the help of fire personnel and a helicopter."
Several cars and one truck had fallen into holes and cracks caused by the landslide, Swedish news agency TT reported.
A rescue services spokesperson told public broadcaster SVT all people in the vehicles had been helped out.
Police said on their website they had launched a probe into whether work at a nearby construction site may have caused the slide. ---
I think I probably react a bit "extra" looking at these scenes on my TV screen, because this happened quite close to where my brother and I were driving only about 1½ month ago (and in very rainy weather), on our holiday road trip to the west coast...
(Repairs to this road will no doubt take a long time and will be causing traffic problems for quite a while onward.)
10 comments:
I have never heard of an earthquake in Sweden. Do you know how many were seriously hurt? Thank goodness it was at least overnight.
This is the first I've heard of it - what a terrible thing to happen and perhaps the recent heavy rain fall has contributed to the slide. Thank goodness no-one was seriously injured.
In the past l've travelled along that stretch of the motorway on many occasions.
Ginny, as far as I know there was no earthquake. Collapses of earth/clay/rock etc can happen for other reasons, like too much rain etc. In this case it seems they also suspect that perhaps construction work in the neighbourhood may have played a part (combined with the amount of rain lately). About people injured I don't know more than what's mentioned in the article quoted in my post.
Carol I suppose it has not been big news abroad as few people were injured, even though it caused massive material damage. As usual, it does make a difference to one's reactions when one knows the place/area where it happened, doesn't it!
this did not hit our news channels here, probably because of no deaths reported. i would have thought the same way you did, knowing it could have been you and your brother in the path of the mudslide. you are correct, it will take months maybe longer to repair the damage. mudslides in California are so common, it is not a surprise but yours is because it is not so common in your country.
Sandra, other roads and areas have been damaged by large quantities of rain this summer/early autumn as well - but not to this extent, plus it's one of our busiest motorways.
Since I rarely watch the "Tagesschau" (our main news on state TV at 8:00 every evening) on weekends, I don't know whether it was on the news here or not. In any case, I hope those few people who were even only lightly injured physically won't be too traumatised mentally - I know I would be! Imagine you driving along, no care in the world, and all of a sudden... a big hole opens under your car!
Meike, even if it seems that only a few people were injured physically in this case, I imagine that a lot more were probably affected mentally... Whether they were actually present just when it happened, or only "nearly"!
That's very very scary. I hope they find out what happened, could be land moving even?
Amy, I heard on the radio today that there was quick clay involved and that there had probably been very slow movement going on down beneath for years before this sudden collapse now. Construction work going on in the neighbourhood might also have contributed.
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