Oso: The death toll from a massive mudslide that devastated a rural community in Washington state last month rose by three to 33 yesterday, with a dozen people still unaccounted for, county officials said.
A rain-soaked hillside collapsed without warning on March 22, above the north fork of the Stillaguamish River, sending a torrent of mud over the river and across state Highway 530, engulfing some three dozen homes on the outskirts of the tiny community of Oso.
Of the 33 people confirmed dead, 30 have been identified, the Snohomish County medical examiner’s office said in a statement. Recovery crews were still searching for another 12 people unaccounted for as of Monday morning, but that figure could fluctuate as it has since the day of the disaster.
The dozen people still missing from the slide include three children — a 2-year-old girl and two boys, ages four and 14. At least half of the missing lived on Steelhead Drive, a street which the mudslide slammed into, the county said.
Nine-year-old girl missing in Alabama floods
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama: A 9-year-old girl appeared to have been swept away by flash floods triggered by severe storms in Mississippi and more than 100 people were rescued from deluged apartment buildings in Alabama, authorities said yesterday.
Firefighters in a Birmingham, Alabama, suburb worked for six hours to evacuate residents by boat and rope pulls after swift waters from a nearby creek flooded their apartments, said Homewood Fire Department Lieutenant Gus Murphree.
No one was injured, he said.
Authorities in Mississippi were still searching for the young girl, believed to have been carried away by flash-flood waters triggered by storms that were expected to head north into the eastern United States.
The missing child was from Yazoo County, where flooding had affected homes and businesses, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said. Seven people suffered minor injuries in Covington County, Mississippi, where homes had apparently been damaged overnight by a tornado, the emergency agency said.
Agencies
