Mudslide: $10M & 24 dead

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

An American flag hangs from the only cedar post left standing at the scene of a deadly mudslide, Monday, March 31, 2014, in Oso, Wash. (AP Photo/The Herald, Sofia Jaramillo, Pool)

Estimated financial losses from the deadly Washington mudslide have reached $10 million, Gov. Jay Inslee said Monday in a letter asking the federal government for a major disaster declaration.

In seeking additional federal help following one of the deadliest landslides in U.S. history, Inslee said about 30 families need assistance with housing, along with personal and household goods. The estimated losses include nearly $7 million in structures and more than $3 million in their contents, Inslee's letter said.

The Snohomish County medical examiner's office said Monday afternoon that it has received a total of 24 victims, and 18 of those have been publicly identified. Previously, the official death toll was 21, with 15 victims identified.

The remains of three additional victims were found Monday, but they have not yet been included in the medical examiner's official numbers, Snohomish County Executive Director Gary Haakenson told reporters at a Monday evening briefing.

The county sheriff's office released a list of 22 people believed missing following the March 22 slide that destroyed a rural mountainside community northeast of Seattle. That's down from the 30 people officials previously considered missing.

"There's been an exhaustive effort by the detectives to narrow the list down to one that they feel comfortable releasing," Haakenson said.

"These are 22 people whose loved ones are grieving," he said. "We want to do all we can to find them and put some closure in place for their families."

He said there could be some overlap between the list of missing and the handful of victims who have not been positively identified by the medical examiner.

Steve Harris, a division supervisor for the search effort, said Monday that search teams have been learning more about the force of the slide, helping them better locate victims in a debris field that is 70 feet deep in places.

"There's a tremendous amount of force and energy behind this," Harris said of the slide.

Harris said search dogs are the primary tool for finding victims, and searchers are finding human remains four to six times per day. Sometimes crews only find partial remains, which makes the identification process harder.