Norway: Scores of sheep swept away by floods

Torrential rain in Norway caused rivers to burst their banks with one waterway sweeping away more than 100 sheep, police said on Monday.

The More and Romsdal police department said it was working with the fire brigade to rescue sheep and bring them to safe ground. It tweeted that more than 100 sheep had been carried away by water from the river Surna some 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of the city of Trondheim.

Sheep farmer Harald Kragnes,  who had 107 sheep at pasture when the flood struck, said he had lost about half of them.

"It is a desperate situation. I think I've lost over 50 animals," Kragnes told the Verdens Gang tabloid newspaper. "I've also heard that neighbors have missing animals. I've never experienced anything like it."

While many sheep were lost and feared dead, others were believed to have been left stranded on islands along the river. Officials said the river level was on its way down by Monday morning, meaning the chances of saving them were greater. "The forces of nature are working with us," police officer Anders Magne Ormset told the Norway's NRK broadcast news organization.

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Some 25 houses and a residential home for the elderly were cut off in the nearby municipality of Krokstadora. However, despite a weekend of heavy wind and rains, the flooding was not believed to have claimed any human victims.

rc/stb (AFP)

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