Norwegian officials urgently call for new measures after deadly avalanches in north

By Alexandra Enberg

IZMIR, Türkiye (AA) - Officials in Norway are urgently calling for new measures to be implemented following a series of avalanches in the country’s northern region that have killed both local residents and tourists.

The director of northern Norway’s Tromso Municipality appealed to residents Sunday to heed police warnings and not head to the mountains following 20 avalanches over the past few days.

"It is always the first days of good weather after previous avalanches that are the most risky, and that is when the most accidents occur," Stig Tore Johnsen told the Norwegian News Agency.

"Now that the weather is nice, the avalanche danger is extremely high. That is why we are very concerned about the current situation," he said.

Johnsen was at the time not aware that several avalanches already had occurred Sunday morning. A traffic ban had not been introduced, but Johnsen urged residents in the area to listen to the police.

"We have paved trails all over Tromso, so use them. Listen to the police. Don't go to the mountains," he stressed.

After four people were killed and one person was critically injured in three separate avalanches in the area on Friday, three ministers were heading north on Sunday.

Justice Minister Emilie Mehl, Fisheries Minister Bjornar Skjaeran and Agriculture and Food Minister Sandra Borch were scheduled to meet with the mayors of three municipalities in Lyngen town hall in the afternoon.

The three mayors in avalanche prone Troms county are now requesting new national measures to prevent more deaths from avalanches.

Lyngen Mayor Dan-Havard Johnsen said they would be briefing the ministers about the situation.

"We want to show how critical and problematic the situation is," said Johnsen.

He believes that a national warning service for avalanches should be put in place, a national center for avalanche preparedness should be established and a push notification warning system for phones should be developed.

He also has called for the creation of a national standard for what should be included in the warnings and for research to be conducted on how to prevent people from heading to the mountains on days deemed unsafe.

Johnsen believes that a comprehensive national plan is very important. He pointed out that when, for example, several municipalities send notifications by text message, it seems somewhat counterproductive.

"I myself have received notices from two municipalities today, and then it can easily give the impression that it is spam," he said.

"The situation is urgent because thousands of tourists continue to pour into the dangerous, avalanche-prone mountains", the mayor of Nordreisa municipality, Hilde Anita Nyvoll, told the VG newspaper.

"We feel a lack of power because it doesn't help that we send out text messages that there is an extreme danger of avalanches. We see that especially the foreign tourists go up the mountain anyway. It can no longer be up to each individual municipality's responsibility to ensure life and health at this level," said Nyvoll.

"It is catastrophic. It is powerful to see the forces of nature that have come down the mountainside, two people losing their lives in their own homes. It has made a very strong impression on me. It is also powerful to see all the houses around where people will continue to live and continue their everyday lives with the memory of what has happened. People stand no chance against these forces. Humans become very small in the encounter with nature," Justice Minister Mehl told public broadcaster NRK after visiting the affected region.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told NRK that “some of the avalanches happened in areas where it was impossible to predict they would happen. We must learn from that and send precise warnings nationally."

He now wants a review of the procedures for notifying the population.

"We must go through the routines for what is notified, and how to implement it. We have the technological opportunity, so we must get this in place,” he added.