Investigation Plumbs Causes of Fatal 2025 Landslide on Norway Jobsite
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The collapse of a hillside on a railway project in Norway last year killed one worker and raises questions about monitoring of ground conditions during deep soil mixing.
NewsProjectsBusinessTransportationSafety Health Safety & Health Investigation Plumbs Causes of Fatal 2025 Landslide on Norway Jobsite Deep cement-mixing process seen as likely factor By James Leggate Photo courtesy Bane NOR The landslide on a railway expansion project likely resulted from unstable ground conditions disturbed by deep injection of cement slurry. March 18, 2026 An investigation has concluded that ground stabilization work inadvertently triggered a landslide that killed a man who was part of a crew operating a deep cement mixing rig for a railroad project in Levanger, Norway, on Aug. 30, 2025. Engineers hired by the rail operator Bane NOR to investigate the incident determined that more extensive monitoring would have been needed to detect the risk in advance. Witnesses reported hearing scraping and grinding sounds coming from below the rig for about three minutes before the ground began to slip, and workers had completed installation of their 29th column of the morning in the area—out of 90 to be installed—just one minute before the landslide. They shut down the rig and moved to leave the area, but the one man, identified only as a man in his 30s employed by Danish engineering firm Niras, was caught in the slippage. It took nearly two weeks to recover his body. The slide displaced more than 72,000 cu yd of material, according to the report prepared by Norwegian engineering firm Dr.techn. Olav Olsen AS. In addition to killing the worker, more than 550 ft of e...
