1 person dead, 5 believed missing in Alaska landslide

At least one person has been killed, one was injured and five others were believed to be missing in a landslide along the principal roadway serving an island community in Southeast Alaska, state officials said on Tuesday (Nov 21).

A steep, heavily wooded mountain slope gave way on Monday night along a coastal stretch of the Zimovia Highway in Wrangell, Alaska, a fishing and logging town of about 2,000 residents 155 miles (250 km) south of Juneau, the state capital, officials said.

The collapse of the mountainside followed a storm that swept Southeast Alaska with heavy rain and high winds in recent days, saturating soil and heightening landslide hazards across the region, according to Shannon McCarthy, a spokesperson for the state Transportation Department.

The downhill cascade of mud and tree debris struck three homes and buried a 500-foot-wide (152-meter-wide) section of the roadway, according to officials who briefed reporters on a video conference call on Tuesday.

Emergency personnel found the body of a female juvenile in an initial search for survivors on Monday night, and an adult woman was rescued from the debris on Tuesday morning. She was later listed in good condition, said Austin McDaniel a spokesperson for the state Public Safety Department.

Five more people — three adults and two juveniles — were believed missing from two of the stricken homes, McDaniel told reporters. The third home was unoccupied at the time, he said.

Ground-level rescue operations were suspended overnight while geologists assessed the risk of additional landslide activity in the area, but on Tuesday portions of the slide zone was deemed stable enough to resume the search.

Aircraft and drones were also deployed in the search. An estimated 20 to 30 residents in the vicinity of the slide were evacuated, said Mason Villarma, acting borough manager.

The settlement of Wrangell, founded in the 19th century by Russians in a region inhabited for centuries by the Native Tlingit people and their ancestors, occupies the northern tip of Wrangell Island in the Alaska Panhandle region.

It has no connection with the Wrangell Mountains or Wrangell-St. Elias National Park farther inland and well to the northwest.

Wrangell is linked to other towns in Southeast Alaska by ferry and airplane. Its principal road is the Zimovia Highway, which runs along the west side of the island for 14 miles. The landslide struck at mile 11, prompting a five-mile closure of the highway, officials said.

McCarthy said several more slides struck Prince of Wales Island, south of Wrangell, but no casualties were reported there.