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Fully dare tourists were included in an avalanche in Lyngen municipality in Troms. Photo: Terje Pedersen/NTB/TT
A tourist who was buried by an avalanche in Lyngen in northern Norway was miraculously rescued after spending seven hours trapped under the snow.
The man, who is in his fifty years, was found at consciousness for about 1.5 meters of snow shortly after midnight the night to Wednesday. He had then spent almost seven hours in an air pocket from which he could have called the police.
– People who are drawn by an avalanche are usually suffocated within ten minutes if they are buried under the snow. Some survive longer, but seven hours are almost unique in history, says Audun Hetland, avalanche researcher from Tromsö University, to the magazine ITROMSO.
The man was part of a group of three foreign tourists who were skiing in a region where the authorities warned of great avalanche danger. Another person in the company was also swept by by the snow sheet and ended up in the water in a fjord below.
He managed to go ashore and was then able to contact the authorities. A search effort has been going on during the day after a woman still missing, but on Wednesday night, police say in Troms that the woman is assumed to be dead
The woman is in her 50s and Slovenian citizens.