At least one person has died and three others have been injured in a violent landslide in Ketchikan, Alaska, prompting the evacuation of dozens of homes.
The disaster occurred Sunday in the Alaskan port city of Ketchnik. After heavy rainfall over the weekend, a flooded hillside suddenly gave way, destroying several homes. Local authorities reported one death and three injuries.
“I've never seen a landslide of this scale”
As a result of the disaster, residents of dozens of houses were evacuated. According to service representatives, five buildings were seriously damaged and about forty were cut off from electricity.
“In my 65 years here in Ketchikan, I have never seen a landslide of this magnitude,” Ketchikan Mayor Dave Kiffer said in a statement.
He added that the services had not recorded any signals of impending danger before the disaster. According to the authorities, the slope area remains unstable. A potential secondary landslide zone has been identified south of the original disaster site.
Troubled area
As the Associated Press notes, Ketchikan, home to about eight thousand people, is surrounded by temperate rainforest. The steep terrain leaves little room for infrastructure development in the region, with cities and roads built at the foot of the slopes. This, combined with an increase in severe weather events, is causing landslides to occur more frequently in inhabited areas.
Three weeks ago, more than 100 homes in Alaska's capital, Juneau, were destroyed by glacial flooding, an increasingly frequent phenomenon caused by global warming.
Main image source: Reuters