Landslide Toll Rises as Searchers Battle Muck, Standing Water
Among the mounds of mud and ripped-down trees, you see an occasional appliance, a tire here and there, the twisted cables that used to be part of the telephone system. What you don't see are homes.
They are gone. And it is difficult to even figure out where they once stood and what became of them.
The sheer force of a landslide on March 22 pulverized this neighborhood in rural Washington, leaving behind a graveyard in the debris where 28 bodies have been recovered and where crews painstakingly search for people who are listed as missing.
On that awful Saturday, a rain-saturated hillside along the north fork of the Stillaguamish River gave way, sending a square-mile rush of wet earth and rock into the outskirts of the town of Oso in Washington's North Cascade Mountains.
Since then, rescuers have trudged through the muck - 70 feet thick in some places - looking for bodies, though some cling to hope someone might be found alive even 10 days later.
Tough, nasty, dangerous conditions
About 600 people, including more than 100 volunteers, and cadaver dogs are involved in the search, officials have said.
The debris field is full of toxic sludge - a combination of human waste, toxic chemicals from households, propane tanks, oil and gas that make the search extremely dangerous, according to Lt. Richard Burke of the Bellevue Fire Department, who is the spokesman for efforts on the western side of the mile-wide slide.
Every person, animal and thing that comes out of the field has to be decontaminated.
Some of the workers have come down with dysentery, while supervisors are concerned that others may be at risk for tetanus.
Some of the areas in the search zone are too unstable for crews to work there. It would be like working in quicksand, Burke said.
It smells of sewage, but more than a week after the slide, it's not a strong odor, and the dogs, who can detect humans 10 feet under the surface, are undeterred.
Two of the nine dogs involved in Monday's search were suffering the effects of hypothermia, the coordinators of the landslide recovery teams said in a statement on the Snohomish County website.
Some of the volunteers are aiding in the recovery of family mementos from the debris.
The sounds of chainsaws fill the air, as do the rumbling motors of the excavating equipment, which grabs large objects like trees and moves them to the side. Then other people move in for a hand search or a visual inspection of a plot. Orange ribbons mark the grid, indicating areas that have been checked, while some indicate a find of interest.
Boards are placed over the thick slop, making a wooden path for workers to walk.
One of the biggest challenges has been standing water, but warmer temperatures and a lack of rain have helped workers, who are running pumps all day long to drain areas of the debris field.
Areas that were submerged 24 hours prior were able to be searched on Tuesday.
Two U.S. flags fly among the men and women working in the field. One, recovered from the debris, hangs in remembrance of lives lost. The other is at half-staff on the lone tree left standing in this part of the slide zone.
U.S. Dad Wins Huge Custody Fight
By Ana Cabrera and Elizabeth Stuart, CNN
Snowmass, Colorado (CNN) - It's been seven months since Dennis Burns has had any contact with his two young daughters. No visits, no Skype, no phone calls, no communication at all.
Just silence.
But all that could change in the next few weeks.
His daughters are victims of an international abduction.
Burns' ex-wife, Ana Alianelli, spirited away the children, 7-year-old Victoria and 5-year-old Sophia, from their home in Colorado and fled to her native Argentina more than 3½ years ago, violating a court order.
"You know I think about them a lot," Burns told CNN in an exclusive interview. "I dream about them a lot. I can feel their little hugs around my body. I just want to hug them back, and it's super painful."
Burns has devoted his life savings and all his time to fighting what's become a messy international legal battle.
His odyssey now appears to be reaching a conclusion: Argentina's Supreme Court has denied the last of appeals by his ex-wife this year, which means Burns has won his case. The final step will be an order of return from the U.S. State Department and a date to transfer custody of the girls to him.
It all began in September 2010, when Burns and Alianelli were divorcing and found themselves at an impasse: Alianelli wanted to relocate to Buenos Aires, and Burns wanted to stay in Colorado.
After a 13-month custody battle, a Colorado judge ruled in favor of Burns, declaring him the primary residential parent.
"I felt a sense of relief that was just beautiful," he told CNN last November, when "New Day" first presented his story. "I was like, 'I'm going to be able to spend time with my daughters, finally, and live with them and be able to teach them things, and show them things."
Just three weeks later, Alianelli flew the girls out of the United States on their Argentine passports. They've been living with her in Buenos Aires ever since.
Washington Landslide: Families Pray for Miracles as Death Toll Grows
With each passing day, the toll grows from a mountain that moved, a massive landslide that swallowed houses and trailers in Washington's Cascade Mountains.
At least 16 bodies have been recovered, another eight bodies have been located but not recovered. That toll is only expected to grow as searchers dig through a mountain of mud and debris to try to find the people who called the towns of Oso and Darrington home.
Some were from the area, and others were drawn by the remote beauty of the rugged Cascade Mountains.
They were neighbors and, in some cases, friends.
Among them was a Navy commander with a love of the mountains and a retired couple living out their twilight years by spending time with their children and grandchildren. Then there was a 20-something and the man she loved, who were planning a wedding at the woman's family home.
New Video of Deadly Aspen Plane Crash
Chilling new video shows the terrifying moment a private jet crashes into the runway of the Aspen, Colorado airport earlier this month, CNN’s Ana Cabrera reports.
Surveillance cameras positioned around the runway capture each harrowing moment of the plane’s failed landing.
The small plane approaches the runway, then aborts landing because of difficult conditions.
Minutes later, in the eerie black and white video, the pilot appears to attempt to abort the second landing as well, but tragically, he’s too late.
The plane nosedives, flipping upside-down on impact, and skids down the runway.
Ground workers race to the scene and watch in horror as the plane bursts in the distance.
Three people were on board. One injured co-pilot was released from the hospital last week, while one remains hospitalized. The third man was killed at the scene of the crash.
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