Fatal accident in an ice cave in Breiðamerkurjökull glacier
Ice cave in Breiðamerkurjökull glacier. Rax/Ragnar Axelsson
Emergency personnel are looking for two people who are trapped under the debris of an ice cave that collapsed in Breiðamerkurjökull glacier yesterday.
A group of 25 people was on an organized tour of the area with a tour guide when an ice cave collapsed and four people were trapped under the ice. A notification was received by emergency responders just after 3 pm yesterday.
"Four people were hit by ice when a wall in the ice cave caved in. Two people have already been rescued from the ice and they are seriously injured. The search is still ongoing for two people who are trapped in the ice cave," the police in Suðurland wrote on Facebook.
The Civil Defense activated a group disaster plan, opened a coordination center and also opened a mass aid center in Öræfi.
Breiðamerkurjökull glacier is below Vatnajökull glacier and Öræfajökull glacier to the south and southeast. Kort
One has died
Later yesterday it was confirmed by Sveinn Kristján Rúnarsson, senior police officer at the police in South Iceland, that one person had died and one had been taken to Reykjavík by air ambulance and is out of danger. However, two are still missing.
All those who fell under the ice on Breiðamerkurjökull glacier were tourists of different nationalities. "These were people who bought themselves an open tour and were in groups of two to four people," Rúnarsson says.
Work camps set up
"The search went on up to midnight and was very difficult since it was impossible to get any machinery to the area so all the digging had to be done manually. Rescue teams were working hard to shovel ice in a gully or channel where a wall of ice collapsed on the people.
Yesterday over 100 people were involved in the operation of rescuing the group from the glacier. Photo/Rut Gunnarsdóttir
Don't know the identity of the missing persons
The police in South Iceland have not received information about the identity of the tourists who are being searched for on Breiðamerkurjökull glacier. About a seventy people are now active in the search.
"We are still narrowing down who we are looking for." That work started yesterday and is still going on," Rúnarsson says.
He says that the search, which started again around 7 am this morning, is going well, but that the situation is difficult.
