A tourist died yesterday during a visit to a glacier in southern Iceland when the ice collapsed.
A second tourist was taken to hospital after reporting non life-threathening injuries. Two people are still missing.
The group of 25 people were visiting an ice cave at Breidamerkurjökull on August 25 with a guide when the ice collapsed.
Emergency services received a call reporting the incident at 3pm and up to 200 people have been working to rescue those missing since.
The difficult conditions forced rescue services to pause their search at Breidamerkurjökull glacier until morning.
“The conditions are very difficult on the ground,” said local police chief Sveinn Kristján Rúnarsson.
“It’s in the glacier. It’s hard to get equipment there… It’s bad. Everything is being done by hand.”
Chief Superintendent Rúnarsson said police had been unable to contact the two missing people and that while the conditions were “difficult”, the weather was “fair”.
Confirming that all those involved were foreign tourists, he said there was nothing to suggest that the trip to the cave should not have taken place.
“Ice cave tours happen almost the whole year,” he said.
“These are experienced and powerful mountain guides who run these trips. It’s always possible to be unlucky.
“I trust these people to assess the situation – when it’s safe or not safe to go, and good work has been done there over time.
“This is a living land, so anything can happen.”
The police chief reportedly said that the group had been standing in a ravine between cave mouths when an ice wall collapsed.
Breidamerkurjökull is a glacial tongue which extends from the Vatnajökull glacier to the Jökulsárlón lagoon. The glacial tongue is famed for its ice caves, with groups offering tours.