U.S.

Updated February 08, 2010

N.C. Mudslide Evacuees Urged to Stay Away for Weeks

AP

MAGGIE VALLEY, N.C.

Residents are being urged to stay away from their North Carolina mountainside homes after a 30-foot-high mudslide washed over their road.

Residents are being urged to stay away from their North Carolina mountainside homes after a 30-foot-high mudslide washed over their road.

Emergency workers evacuated about 40 people from a dozen homes near Maggie Valley in western North Carolina after the Friday mudslide.

The Asheville Citizen-Times reported Monday that authorities took the evacuees back to their homes on all-terrain vehicles just long enough to gather belongings.

But residents were told they may need to stay away for weeks or longer as rain threatens to further wash out a slope that officials say is unstable and dangerous.

Investigators say recent heavy rain and snow were factors in the mudslide. A 2003 landslide in the area killed a woman whose home was crushed.

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