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LANDSLIDE

IN NUMBERS: Sweden’s lucky escape as landslide causes huge motorway sinkhole

A busy Swedish motorway moved 50 metres as waves of mud came crashing down on the road. The incident is expected to cause months of traffic chaos – but numbers show that it could have been much worse.

Published: 25 September 2023 10:23 CEST
IN NUMBERS: Sweden's lucky escape as landslide causes huge motorway sinkhole
Miraculously, no one died in the landslide. Photo: Björn Larsson Rosvall/TT

E6

The main motorway that connects Gothenburg and Oslo.

01.20am

A massive landslide at a motorway rest stop near Stenungsund is believed to have started at 1.20am, with emergency service SOS Alarm receiving the first call at 01.46am.

700 by 200 metres

An area of around 700 by 200 metres was directly affected by the landslide, with the worst parts destroying an area of around 150 by 100 metres, completely tearing up the motorway.

50 metres

Emergency services believe that the road in some places moved as much as 50 metres.

IN PICTURES:

The E6 motorway is destroyed in both northbound and southbound direction. Photo: Hanna Brunlöf Windell/TT

Three

Three people were taken to hospital with minor injuries. One of them was able to leave hospital on Sunday.

Zero

Fortunately, no one died in the landslide.

Police and rescue services have searched the area with dogs and don’t believe that anyone is still trapped in the mud and debris.

The injury count could have been much higher if the landslide had happened during rush hour, instead of in the early hours of Saturday.

“It’s unbelievably lucky that it happened in the middle of the night,” HannaSofie Pedersen, a climate expert at the Swedish Geotechnical Institute, told the TT news agency.

Ten truck drivers

Around ten truck drivers who had parked their vehicles along a slip road in the area overnight witnessed the landslide. They described waking up to loud noises and seeing the earth move.

One fast-food restaurant

A Burger King restaurant, a fuel station, a car wash and a DIY store are located at the scene. The restaurant, which completely collapsed under the mud, bore the brunt of the damage.

One construction site

Police are investigating whether blasting works at a nearby building site may have caused the landslide. The Aftonbladet newspaper reports that the company owning the site had dumped leftover sand close to the motorway in violation of their permit – a practice that caused a similar landslide at Munkedal in 2006. The company however denies any wrongdoing.

10,000-12,000 vehicles

The number of vehicles that normally pass Stenungsund on the E6 every day.

They will now be rerouted via the E45 and the 650 road, with transport authorities urging drivers to primarily choose the E45 option.

Several months

Sweden’s Transport Administration believes it’s going to take “several months” to repair the road.

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CRIME

EXPLAINED: What we know about the attack on a Swedish anti-fascist meeting

Several masked men, described by anti-racism magazine Expo as "a group of Nazis" carried out the attack at an event organised by the Left Party and Green Party. Here's what we know so far.

Published: 25 April 2024 09:35 CEST
Updated: 25 April 2024 12:16 CEST
EXPLAINED: What we know about the attack on a Swedish anti-fascist meeting

What happened?

Several masked men burst into a Stockholm theatre on Wednesday night and set off smoke bombs during an anti-fascism event, according to police and participants.

Around 50 people were taking part in the event at the Moment theatre in Gubbängen, a southern suburb of the Swedish capital, organised by the Left Party and the Green Party.

“Three people were taken by ambulance to hospital,” the police said on its website, shortly after the attack.

According to Swedish media, one person was physically assaulted and two had paint sprayed in their faces.

“The Nazis attacked visitors using physical violence, with pepper spray, and vandalised the venue before throwing in some kind of smoke grenade which filled the foyer with smoke,” Expo wrote on its website. 

The magazine’s head of education Klara Ljungberg was at the event in order to hold a lecture at the invitation of the two political parties.

What was the meeting about?

According to the Left Party’s press officer, the event was “a meeting about growing fascism”. 

Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar described the event to public broadcaster SVT as an “open event, for equality among individuals”.

As well as Ljungberg from Expo, panelists at the event included anti-fascist activist Mathias Wåg, who also writes for Swedish centre-left tabloid Aftonbladet.

“They were determined and went straight for me,” Wåg told Expo just after the attack. “I received a few blows but nothing that caused serious damage.”

“I was invited to be on a panel in order to discuss anti-fascism with representatives from the Left Party and the Green Party,” he told the magazine. “I didn’t know this was going to happen, but there’s obviously a risk when Expo and I are in the same place.”

What has the reaction been like?

All of Sweden’s parties across the political spectrum have denounced the attack, with Dadgostar describing it as a “threat to our democracy” when TT newswire interviewed her at the theatre a few hours after the attack occurred.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, from the conservative Moderates, called the attack “abhorrent”.

The Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals are currently in government with the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats, while the Social Democrats, Left Party, Centre Party and Green Party are in opposition.

“It is appalling news that a meeting hosted by the Left Party has been stormed,” Kristersson told TT. “I have reached out to Nooshi Dadgostar and expressed my deepest support. This type of abhorrent action has no place in our free and open society.”

“Right-wing extremists want to scare us into silence,” Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson wrote on X. “They will never be allowed to succeed.”

“The attack by right-wing extremists at a political meeting is a direct attack on our democracy and freedom of speech,” Green Party co-leader Daniel Helldén wrote on X. “My thoughts are with those who were affected this evening.”

Sweden Democrat party leader Jimmie Åkesson wrote in an email to TT that “political violence is terrible, in all its forms, and does not belong in Sweden.”

“All democratic forces must stand in complete solidarity against all kinds of politically motivated violence,” he continued.

His party has previously admitted to being founded by people from “fascist movement” New Swedish Movement, skinheads, and people with “various types of neo-Nazi contact”.

“It is an attack not only on the Left Party, Green Party and the Expo Foundation, but also on our entire democratic society,” Centre Party leader Muharrem Demirok, who referred to the attackers as “Nazis”, wrote on social media. “Those affected have all my support.”

Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch and Liberal leader Johan Pehrson both referred to the attackers as “anti-democratic forces”.

“It is never acceptable for a political meeting to be stormed by anti-democratic forces,” Busch wrote. “There is no place for this in our society.”

“Anti-democratic forces like this represent a serious threat to our democracy and must be met with society’s hardest iron fist,” Pehrson said.

What about the attackers? Has anyone been arrested?

Not yet. The police had not made any arrests at the time of writing on Thursday morning.

According to TT, police did not want to comment on who could be behind the attack.

It is currently being investigated as a violation of the Flammable and Explosive Goods Act, assault, causing danger to others and disturbing public order.

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