Apartment building collapses in Norway due to rock slides from the mountain side

Tragedy in Norway

OSLO, Norway — The risk of a gas explosion and further collapse was preventing a search for five people feared dead in a rock slide that wrecked an apartment building in western Norway, police said Thursday.

Geologists said as much as 7,300 tons of stone — some of it in huge slabs — slid down a steep hillside near downtown Aalesund in the early hours of Wednesday. The rocks slammed into the back of the six-story building, causing the lower floors to collapse as the whole structure was jolted up to 23 feet forward. Fifteen residents were taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

Firefighters have been spraying water onto the debris, seeking to control gas burning off from a huge buried propane tank, to keep it from exploding or spreading fire through the rest of the building, some 220 miles northwest of Oslo. News Via