Landslide causes large chunk of Swedish motorway to collapse

Shutterstock [for illustration only]

A large chunk of a motorway in southwest Sweden collapsed overnight, causing three people to be taken to hospital with light injuries, police said on Saturday.

The landslide damaged the motorway between Sweden's second-biggest city, Gothenburg and Norway's capital, Oslo, near the small town of Stenungsund, around 50 km north of Gothenburg on Sweden's west coast.

"The hardest hit parts of the landslide area measure around 150 x 100 metres. In total, however, the landslide has affected an area of around 700 x 200 meters," the Gothenburg Rescue Services said in a statement.

The rescue services said the slide affected around ten vehicles, a wooded area, a business area with a gas station and a fast food restaurant.

"A number of people have been helped out of vehicles in the slide area with the help of fire personnel and a helicopter."

Swedish news agency TT reported that several cars and one truck had fallen into holes and cracks caused by the landslide.

A rescue services spokesperson told public broadcaster SVT all people in the vehicles had been helped out.

Police said on their website they had launched a probe into whether work at a nearby construction site may have caused the slide.

"It's still unclear if there is any connection to blasting/work at the site and the landslide," they said. "No person is currently suspected of a crime."

The rescue services said specially trained staff and search dogs would now search the area and that further slides could not be ruled out.

More from International News

  • UN warns funding cuts threaten vital aid

    The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) have sounded the alarm over severe funding shortfalls that are hindering life-saving humanitarian aid in countries including Nigeria, Burundi, and Colombia.

  • Multiple dead in Vancouver after vehicle plows into street festival

    A number of people were killed and multiple others were injured in Vancouver after a vehicle drove into a crowd at a Filipino street festival in the western Canadian city, police said on Saturday.

  • Rome and the world bid farewell to Pope Francis

    Presidents, royalty and simple mourners bade farewell to Pope Francis on Saturday at a solemn funeral ceremony, where a cardinal appealed for the pontiff's legacy of caring for migrants, the downtrodden and the environment to be kept alive.

  • Trump, Zelenskyy meet in Vatican basilica to seek Ukraine peace

    US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis, met one-on-one in a marble-lined Vatican basilica on Saturday to try to revive faltering efforts to end Russia's war with Ukraine.

Coming Up