4th Person Found Dead, 2 Still Missing After Landslide

UPDATE Nov 27, 2023 12:30 AM CST

Authorities recovered the body of an 11-year-old girl Saturday evening from the debris of a landslide in southeast Alaska that tore down a wooded mountainside days earlier, smashing into homes in a remote fishing village, the AP reports. The girl, Kara Heller, was the fourth person confirmed killed by last Monday night's landslide. The girl's parents Timothy Heller, 44 and Beth Heller, 36, and her sister Mara Heller, 16, were discovered and confirmed dead in the initial days after the landslide. Search crews are looking for a third child still missing from the Heller family, Derek, 12, and neighbor Otto Florschutz, 65, according to Tim DeSpain, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Public Safety. Florschutz's wife survived the disaster.

Nov 22, 2023 1:30 AM CST

Three people were killed and three were missing after a landslide barreled down a heavily forested, rain-soaked mountainside and smashed into homes in a remote fishing community in southeast Alaska. The slide—estimated to be 450 feet wide—occurred at about 9pm Monday during a significant rain and windstorm near Wrangell, an island community of 2,000 people some 155 miles south of the state capital of Juneau. Rescue crews found the body of a girl in an initial search and late Tuesday the bodies of two adults were found by a drone operator, the AP reports. Searchers used a cadaver-sniffing dog and heat-sensing drones to search for two children and one adult unaccounted for after the disaster, while the Coast Guard and other vessels looked along a waterfront littered with rocks, trees and mud.

Alaska State Troopers spokesperson Austin McDaniel said a woman who had been on the upper floor of a home was rescued. She was in good condition and receiving medical care. One of the three homes that was struck was unoccupied, McDaniel said. Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued a disaster declaration for Wrangell, saying he and his wife were heartbroken and praying for all those affected. The landslide left a scar of barren earth from near the top of the mountain down to the ocean. A wide swath of evergreen trees were ripped out of the ground and a highway was buried by debris, cutting off access and power to approximately 75 homes.

(More Alaska stories.)