COPENHAGEN, DENMARK (AP) – Days of heavy rain Landslides and flooding have caused Norway’s mountainous south, where authorities said Wednesday they are considering torpedoing a section of a dam that is in danger of bursting to prevent downstream communities from being swept away.
The Glamma, Norway’s longest and most massive river, was dammed at the Praskéridfoss hydroelectric power station, which was flooded and stopped working. Police said a controlled blowout before the dam fails would allow officials to control the flow of water.
“When there is a lot of water, we can probably imagine, at worst, some kind of tidal wave sailing down the river,” police spokeswoman Meret Hjerto told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
Pål Erik Teigen, a police officer in the Innland district, later told VG that the facility “is without electricity, so we can’t connect to the gates. We’ll soon be physically helping open a hatch.”
A Norwegian woman in her 70s died early Wednesday after falling into a stream the day before. She managed to crawl to the banks, but police said that because of the flooding, it took several hours before rescue teams were able to bring her to the hospital, where she died.
Police in southern Norway said more than 600 people were evacuated in the northern Oslo area overnight and said the situation there was “unclear and chaotic”. On Wednesday, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration said all major roads between Oslo and Trondheim, Norway’s third-largest city, were closed.
“We are in a state of crisis of national proportions,” said Inlandet Mayor Oud Hof. “People are isolated in many communities, and emergency services risk not being able to reach people who need help.”
Storm Hans It struck parts of Scandinavia and the Baltic countries for several days, causing rivers to overflow, damaging roads and injuring people with its falling branches.
More heavy rain is forecast for southern Norway and central Sweden on Wednesday, with huts, small homes and mobile homes floating in rivers or being swept away by strong currents.
Norwegian meteorologists said that up to 30 millimeters (1.2 inches) of rain is expected by Wednesday evening, saying “the amounts are not extreme, but given the conditions in the area, the consequences could be.”
In Göteborg, Sweden’s second largest city, large parts of the harbor were under water.
Meteorological institutes in both countries issued severe weather warnings on Wednesday.
“This is a very dangerous situation that can lead to great consequences and losses,” the Norwegian Meteorological Institute said. Its Swedish counterpart issued a red alert for the west coast, saying that “very large amounts of rain causing extremely high flows in streams” can be expected.
Aftonbladet quoted Erik Hoggard Olsen, a meteorologist at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, as saying the weather was unusual for this time of year.
“It is exceptional to have such a low pressure (system) as Hans, which has brought so much rain for several days in a row,” he said. “Especially being a summer month, it has been going on for so long.”
The Norwegian Directorate of Water Resources and Energy has raised its warning level for floods, landslides and landslides from orange to red in parts of southern Norway. The directorate said high levels of flooding were recorded in several places in Drammensvassdraget, a drainage basin west of Oslo, the capital.
There are four lakes, said Eric Holmqvist, the agency’s chief engineer. Including Randsfjorden, Norway’s fourth largest, was particularly prone to flooding.
“We have to go back to 1910 to have the same predictions for Randsfjorden,” Holmqvist told the VG news paper.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Storr visited the affected areas in southern Norway. “When the rain stops, another challenge begins: the water needs to get out,” he said.
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