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At least nine people were injured and up to 200 evacuated on Wednesday after a nighttime landslide in a small town north of Oslo, police and local media said.
Several houses were swept away in Gjerdrum, home to 5,000 people 25 kilometres northeast of the capital, in the early hours of Wednesday.
“Several homes have been taken by the landslide. Emergency services, with assistance from the Norwegian civil defence and the military, are in the process of evacuating,” Norwegian police said on Twitter.
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Norwegian media said up to 200 people had been evacuated from their homes and nine injured, though none were in critical condition.
“Police are designating this as a disaster,” chief of operations Roger Pettersen told broadcaster NRK.
He said emergency calls had come in from people saying their whole house was moving.
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“So there are dramatic reports and the situation is serious,” Pettersen said.
Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg offered her sympathies in a social media post, saying, “It hurts to see how the forces of nature have ravaged Gjerdrum. My thoughts go to everyone affected by the landslide.”
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