Heavy rain from unusual summer storm triggers landslides in Norway and floods Swedish harbor
AP, COPENHAGEN :
Days of heavy rain triggered landslides in mountainous southern Norway, where police described a “chaotic” situation Wednesday and said more than 600 people were evacuated overnight in a region north of Oslo.
Storm Hans has battered parts of Scandinavia and the Baltics for several days, causing rivers to overflow, damaging roads and injuring people with falling branches. In Sweden and Norway, sheds, small houses and mobile homes floated in rivers or were carried away by strong sea currents.
”We are in a crisis situation of national dimensions,” Aud Hove, mayor of Norway’s Innlandet county. “People are isolated in several local communities, and the emergency services risk not being able to reach people who need help.”
More heavy rain was expected over southern Norway and central Sweden. “The situation is still unclear and chaotic,” Norwegian police said.
Erik Hojgard-Olsen, a meteorologist with the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, was quoted as saying by the Aftonbladet newspaper that the weather was unusual for this time of year.
“It is exceptional to have such a low pressure (system) as Hans, which has brought so much rain for several days in a row,” he said. “Especially for being a summer month, it has lasted a long time.”
Large parts of the harbor in Goteborg, Sweden’s second-largest city, was under water. The meteorological institute on Wednesday its red-level warning for the country’s west coast, saying “very large amounts of rain causing extremely high flows in streams” could be expected.
The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate upgraded its warning for floods, landslides and landslides from orange to red for parts of southern Norway. The agency said record high flood levels were recorded in several places in the Drammensvassdraget, a drainage basin west of Oslo, the capital.
The Norwegian Meteorological Institute issued its highest extreme weather warning due to heavy rain.
“This is a very serious situation that can lead to extensive consequences and damage,” it said.