Russia: Avalanche rescue effort resumes
Rescuers were today picking through the trail of destruction left by a huge chunk of glacier that crashed down a mountainside in southern Russia, killing as many as 150 people.
Emergency workers had pulled out the remains of just five people from the mass of ice, mud and debris that the avalanche left in the Karmadon Gorge, said Ivan Teterin, commander of the Emergency Situations Ministry’s rescue effort.
Earlier, officials in the Russian republic of North Ossetia said 17 villagers whose houses had been destroyed were considered dead even though their bodies had not been found. Ninety-four people were reported missing by relatives.
Emergency officials believe 100-150 people were killed by the Friday night avalanche in the Karmadon Gorge, just outside the republic’s capital of Vladikavkaz, said a duty officer at North Ossetia’s Emergency Situations Ministry.
In addition to local residents, officials feared that many tourists had been in the area. The gorge is a popular spot among Vladikavkaz residents, who often head to the mountains to relax on weekends.
Among the missing was a film crew led by popular Russian actor-director Sergei Bodrov, who was shooting a film high in the Caucasus Mountains.
Boris Dzgoyev, the emergency situations minister of North Ossetia, said a total of 49 people from the film crew or local support staff were still missing. He said nine members of the group who had not been with the others were safe.
The avalanche raged down the gorge after a 495ft-tall chunk of a glacier broke off from a mountain and slid down, accumulating a mix of mud, rocks and uprooted tree trunks as it went.
Moving at more than 62 mph, the avalanche slid 20 miles before it stopped on the Gizel-Karmadon highway about six miles from the regional capital of Vladikavkaz.
Rescue efforts were halted after dark Saturday, but resumed early today.
In Moscow, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said a group of experts had flown to the region to determine whether there was a risk that the remaining part of the glacier could fall.
“One of our main tasks now is to determine how the remainder of the glacier will behave,” the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. “If the weather suddenly becomes warm then we will have to take measures to evacuate people who could end up in the disaster zone.”
The chairman of North Ossetia’s mountaineering club, Kazbek Khamitsayev, attributed the glacier’s fall to humid, rainy weather in the area this summer.
