ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Four residents of a neighborhood in Alaska were missing Tuesday after heavy rain caused several landslides, emergency responders said.
The people were missing in Sitka, a coastal town where at least three landslides were reported after 2 1/2 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. One sinkhole also was reported.
The people who were unaccounted for were all in a neighborhood hit by one of the landslides, Sitka fire spokeswoman Sara Peterson said.
She did not know if the people were together when the landslide occurred.
An office building just outside town was evacuated because it is near one of the landslides.
Sitka, almost 600 miles southeast of Anchorage, sees heavy rain throughout the year. More rain was expected.
Heavy rain was blamed for a major landslide in September near the town that wiped out hundreds of thousands of dollars in watershed-restoration projects. The rain also damaged a footbridge and trails, including one that had been repaired after flooding in January 2014.
A year earlier, two people at a U.S. Forest Service cabin near Sitka escaped moments before part of a mountain slid down.
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