Norway landslide team finds third body, but still hopeful

Rescuers on Saturday found a third body as they pressed ahead with a search for the survivors of a landslide that buried several homes in a Norwegian village.

Seven people were still missing on Saturday evening,  days after the landslide in the early hours of Wednesday morning in the village of Ask, 25 kilometers (16 miles) northeast of Oslo. 

A second body had been found hours earlier, with the first having been discovered on Friday.

However, rescue operations chief Roy Alkvist said his team still had hopes of finding survivors. Police have not yet released any information about any of the deceased.

Worst landslide in Norway's modern history

Workers on the ground were aided by helicopters and drones with heat-detecting cameras. Norwegian police vowed they would not scale down the search, despite a rescue team from neighboring Sweden having already returned home.

Local police chief Ida Melbo Oeystese said there was a possibility that survivors were trapped in air pockets inside the destroyed homes.

"Medically, you can survive for several days if you have air,'' she told reporters at a news conference.

The landslide is the worst in Norway's modern history, and it has sent shock waves through the Scandinavian nation.

Norwegian police on Friday published the names and birth years of the 10 people who were initially reported missing, including a 2-year-old child. The identities of the recovered bodies have yet to be confirmed.

Some homes were buried by mud, others were split in two and others were carried away. Some were left teetering over a crater opened by the mudslide, with several of them subsequently falling into it.

The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate said the disaster was a "quick clay slide." Quick clay is found in Norway and Sweden and can rapidly collapse and turn to fluid when overstressed.

rc/nm (dpa, AFP, AP)