Landslide Hits Residential Area in Norway, at least 10 Injured

Ten people were hurt, one of them critically, and 21 people remained unaccounted for after a landslide in southern Norway swept away more than a dozen buildings in the early hours of Wednesday, police said.

Around 700 people have been evacuated from the area so far, police said.

Photos of the site showed a large crater with destroyed buildings at the bottom of it. Other buildings hung on the edges of the crater.

The missing people were from homes in the innermost area of the landslide but it was not immediately clear whether they had been trapped in their houses, were away at the time or had managed to escape, the police said.

"This should have been a New Year's weekend where we should have had peace and quiet and maybe should have worried most about COVID-19 and not whether we have missing persons from a landslide," Prime Minister Erna Solberg told broadcaster TV2.

Masses of earth are continuing to move in what has been one of the largest clay slides in recent Norwegian history, Torild Hofshagen, the regional head of the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, told a news conference.

There was significant rainfall in Southern Norway in the recent days which may have a relation to the landslide.