More victims found as FEMA, National Guard join search (WA landslide) [View all]

[uppityperson]

Source: Seattle Times

Searchers on Tuesday added to the grim toll from Saturday’s mudslide near Oso, finding additional bodies in the muck and debris that once was a community.

Officials confirmed they had recovered 16 bodies since the slide, and believed there were as many as eight more that had been found but remained in the debris.

The announcement came in the evening, after rescue teams had expanded their search for survivors or bodies amid worsening weather conditions in a massive mudslide above the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River in Snohomish County.
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Hots, the fire official, predicted that rescue and recovery effort will take weeks. “”This is going to be a very long event,” he said....

A search dog sniffs through the debris field Tuesday. The recovery effort has been expanded to include hundreds of searchers.


A damaged vehicle sits in debris


Read more: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023221942_mudslidetuesdayxml.html

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16 bodies found, actively looking for 8 more. 176 still on "missing" list which is inaccurate as of now, a working list.

Bonus article, more of feature than LBN but bonus
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014/03/mudslide-spares-husband-kills-wife/

Mudslide spares man, kills wife sitting beside him

Linda McPherson and her husband, Gary “Mac” McPherson, were reading the newspaper Saturday morning in their Oso home, separated only by a living room end table, when the trees outside started whipping from side to side, said their daughter Kate McPherson. They then heard a tremendous noise.

The couple never saw the mud. The impact shattered the house and shoved what remained about 150 feet, to the far southeast side of the slide, Kate McPherson said.

Her father, 81, woke up covered in mud. He was able to grab a stick and start digging himself out. Passersby helped extricate him from the slurry and debris. They found Linda McPherson’s lifeless body nearby....