EASTER EVACUATION ENDS: Two-day residential and traffic ban in Nybyen and Lia due to avalanche risk cancelled

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An evacuation of the mountainside buildings in Nybyen, plus a traffic ban in that area and the Lia neighborhood, was cancelled Monday afternoon by The Governor of Svalbard.

The evacuation that begin at 7 p.m. Saturday and affected about 50 people was due to a storm Sunday that brought strong winds and some snow to the area, adding to already risky conditions in local mountains. But assessment by experts Monday determined there is no longer danger to the buildings in the evacuated areas.

“There is still a significant risk of landslides in the terrain,” a statement by the governor notes. “The governor asks people who are on a trip to take their precautions and not seek out avalanche-prone areas.”

A Level Three (“considerable”) avalanche risk level is forecast for the Longyearbyen area Monday and Tuesday by the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate. No major storms are forecast this week for the area.

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Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.

marksabbatini@yahoo.com

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