Around 20 emergency personnel with specially trained dogs were searching Wednesday afternoon for anyone who may have been caught in an avalanche at the Vangslia ski center in Oppdal, central Norway. One person was quickly dug out and found to be uninjured.
Police said the skier had three companions but they were all safe as well. It was unclear whether anyone else may have been buried in the snow that crashed down the mountainside just before noon. No one else had been observed in the actual slide area, but police cautioned that many skiers were on the slopes.
“So we’re mounting a thorough search, for safety’s sake,” Bente Furnes of the Oppdal Red Cross told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK).
The Red Cross had 15 persons in the area who were conducting search and rescue operations with ski center personnel. The avalanche was said to be around 400 meters long and 100 meters wide and started on the side of a valley adjacent to groomed ski slopes.
Around a meter of new snow had fallen in the area, raising avalanche danger in many areas of the mountains of southern and central Norway. High winds have also closed several roads over the mountains.
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