SALT LAKE CITY – Two K9 units from Utah have been dispatched to Washington to help locate victims after a landslide that killed at least 30 people.
Utah Task Force One sent the dogs, which are specially trained to find human remains.The two teams from Utah are part of a total of 20 teams responding from across the nation.
Bill Brass, program manager for Utah Task Force 1, said the teams will bring relief to those who have been working tirelessly in Washington.
“They’ve had the HR [human remains] dogs on scene, but the K9s that are there are just exhausted, so they are rotating the dogs that have been working the last 10, 11 days out and bringing the new dogs in,” he said.
The following is an update on the landslide from CNN:
By Joseph Netto
CNN
(CNN) — Another body has been recovered from last month’s landslide in rural Washington state, raising the death toll to 30, Snohomish County medical examiner’s office said Thursday.
That count is up from 29 on Wednesday. Seventeen people are still missing, authorities said Thursday night.
A square mile of wet earth and rock rushed into the outskirts of the town of Oso in the North Cascade Mountains on March 22. The slide came from a rain-saturated hillside along the north fork of the Stillaguamish River.
Bodies were found in the debris, which is 70 feet thick in some places. Crews have been searching for people who are listed as missing.
CNN’s Jason Hanna contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
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