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The sheriff of Snohomish County, Washington, points at a pile of muddy rubble and describes
what he sees. "You can tell from the debris this appears
to be part of somebody's kitchen, the inside of the house," said Ty Trenary.
Authorities in rural Washington worked feverishly Sunday to find survivors after a landslide
tore through the area north of Seattle, killing eight people and injuring seven. More than
a dozen people are still unaccounted for. "Total devastation. I mean, it's just unbelievable.
It reminds me of what a tornado looks like when it's touched the ground," the sheriff
said. The Saturday landslide, which encompassed
about one square mile, was caused by groundwater saturation tied to heavy rainfall in the area
over the past month. Trenary said rescue crews were working both
sides of the slide. Authorities were also using helicopters to try to identify heat
signatures, or people who may have been able to get free, he said.
But such work is complicated. While there's a tremendous effort to rescue
people who may be trapped, Snohomish County Fire District 21 Chief Travis Hots said Sunday
that the rescue operation must be focused on keeping responders safe because the area
is highly unstable. The mud flow is like quicksand, he said. The
landslide is 15 feet deep in some places. Earlier Sunday, when just four bodies had
been found dead, Hots had said that at least 18 people remained unaccounted for. It was
not immediately clear how many still did. He described the ongoing operation as an "active
rescue," not a recovery effort. On Saturday rescuers dug through the rubble
while survivors were crying for help underneath the debris. Rescuers heard voices around 11:30
p.m. and considered trying to reach the possible survivor or survivors, but "the mud was too
thick and deep," Hots told reporters, and rescuers had to back off.
"Mother Nature holds the cards here on the ability of ground personnel to enter the slide
area. It is essentially a slurry," Washington Gov. Jay Inslee told reporters Sunday.
He called the rescue operation "aggressive."