Two people were missing a day after a massive landslide roared through a rain-soaked city in southeast Alaska, officials said on Thursday.
Four others that had gone missing Wednesday in the coastal town of Haines were located and safe by Thursday morning, the Alaska State Troopers reported.
The huge landslide, which the troopers said covered the area with a 9-foot layer of mud and trees and destroyed at least four homes, was one of many triggered by a fierce storm that hit mountainous southeast Alaska this week.
The National Weather Service reported several sites posted record rains, with 48-hour rainfall totals ranging from 5 to 14 inches, along with heavy snows in some areas and wind gusts of up to 65 miles an hour.
Multiple debris flows and floods have damaged homes and businesses in different communities. Flash-flood warnings remained in effect Thursday for some areas, the National Weather Service said.
In Haines, a community of about 2,500 people located 90 miles north of capital city Juneau and 40 miles south of the Canadian border, the borough government declared a state of emergency Wednesday. Roads are damaged and impassible, including the road to the airport, the borough’s emergency declaration said.
The flooding has been exacerbated by the storm’s timing; the ground was already frozen when the heavy rains came, the emergency declaration said.
Responders used boats Wednesday to evacuate people in the landslide’s path. In all, 24 people were rescued Wednesday, Haines Borough Mayor Doug Olerud told CBC radio Thursday morning.
Officials were evaluating options for continuing the search for landslide victims, the troopers said in their statement. State geologists have been dispatched to Haines "to help ascertain the risk of searching the mudslide," the troopers’ statement said.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Aurora Ellis)
