The landslide Sunday afternoon prompted a mandatory evacuation of 60 nearby homes in the city, a popular cruise ship stop along the famed Inside Passage in the Alaska panhandle. The slope remained unstable Monday, and authorities said that state and local geologists were arriving to assess the potential for further slides.
Four homes were critically damaged, officials said, and homes next to the slide area were still being assessed. Several homes and businesses reported flooding.
Last November, six people — including a family of five — were killed when a landslide destroyed two homes in Wrangell, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) to the north. Torrential rains were blamed for landslides that killed two people in Haines in 2020 and three people in Sitka in 2015.