Avalanche hits Norway Arctic archipelago
COENHAGEN, Denmark – Rescue workers used shovels, excavators, search dogs and powerful lamps to dig through tons of snow in total darkness Saturday after an avalanche smashed into houses on the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, killing one man and sending nine other people to the hospital.
The avalanche tumbled down Saturday about 11 a.m. from Sukkertoppen Mountain into Longyearbyen, the main settlement on Svalbard, shoving houses off their foundations, flipping cars and burying people under yards of snow.
About 100 emergency workers and volunteers, packed in warm clothes because of the below-freezing temperatures, rushed to the scene, and at least one woman was reported to have been dug out of the snow.
During the winter, the remote archipelago, which lies midway between continental Norway and the North Pole, plunges into darkness. The sun does not show above the horizon from late November to mid-February.
Iraqi strike may be ‘mistake’ by 2 sides
ABOARD THE USS KEARSARGE – The American airstrike that may have killed a number of Iraqi soldiers on Friday seems to be “a mistake that involved both sides,” U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Saturday. Iraq pledged to punish those responsible.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to the USS Kearsarge in the Persian Gulf, Carter said the incident near the western Iraqi city of Fallujah was “regrettable.” He called Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to express condolences.
“These kinds of things happen when you’re fighting side by side as we are,” Carter said. He said the airstrike Friday “has all the indications of being a mistake of the kind that can happen on a dynamic battlefield.”
Iraq’s defense minister, Khalid al-Obeidi, told reporters in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, that the strike killed one officer and nine soldiers. He said Iraq had begun an investigation and that the “wrongdoer would be punished according to Iraqi law.” He did not elaborate.
Associated Press
