Oso Landslide Missing Persons Figure Lowered to 90, at Least 25 Dead

Six days after a devastating landslide in the Washington state community of Oso, the death toll is now 25 and the number of missing has been revised to 90 people.

Wednesday,176 people were on the list of missing, but many names were duplicate entries or people who turned up safe. Officials said 90 missing persons is a more accurate figure and they do not expect the number to decrease.

"If you're on this list of 90, you're on this list," said Snohomish County Emergency Management director John Pennington, according to USA Today.

Electricity, phone and internet services was restored to the area Wednesday, giving people who were safe but unaccounted for the opportunity to let their loved ones know.

About 180 people lived on Steelhead Drive, the area buried by the landslide. Pennington added that there are an additional 35 people whose status is "unknown" who are not on the list of 90 officially missing persons.

"It could be as simple as 'John Doe, who lives on Steelhead Lane, we think he had a girlfriend Sally,' " Pennington said.

"I think we have to be logical here," Pennington said. "Unless you're in a jungle in South America, you know what happened here. By now, someone has reached out to them and said 'Hey, that's your home town. They're looking for you.' "

Rainy weather and treacherously difficult terrain - described as an incomprehensible swamp of muddy debris - are hampering the recovery effort.

Only 16 of the 25 confirmed dead have been recovered from the rubble, according to The Daily Herald of Everett, Wash.

"It is so wet and mucky out there it is like a swamp," Arlington Rural Fire Chief Travis Hots said. "If we were to try to put big machinery up there we would lose it."

"You just can't fathom what we are up against out there until you get out there and see the lay of the land," Hots told the Daily Herald, which reported that balls of clay the size of ambulances tumbled down the hillside along State Route 530, about 55 miles northeast of Seattle. The landslide occurred about 10:30 a.m. on March 22, destroying nearly 30 homes.

No one has been found alive in the muddy field of debris - which spans across a square mile - since Saturday.

As of Wednesday, roughly a dozen survivors remain hospitalized from their injuries, The Daily Herald reported, adding that some rescue workers have been injured, including one person who was struck in the head by debris kicked up by a helicopter blade.