Rescue workers used shovels, excavators, search dogs and powerful lamps to work through tonnes of snow after an avalanche smashed into houses on the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, killing one man and sending nine other people to hospital.
The avalanche descended on Saturday about 11am from Sukkertoppen Mountain into Longyearbyen, the main settlement on Svalbard, shoving houses off their foundations, flipping cars and burying people under metres of snow.
In below-freezing temperatures about 100 emergency workers and volunteers rushed to the scene, and at least one woman was reported to have been dug out.
During winter the remote archipelago, which lies midway between continental Norway and the North Pole, plunges into darkness. The sun does not show above the horizon from late November to mid-February.
"This is a very serious situation and we already have a tragic outcome," Svalbard Governor Kjerstin Askholt told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. "We still have no complete overview."
Longyearbyen hospital spokesman Per-Christian Johansen told The Associated Press a local man in his 40s died and nine other people, including four children, were admitted to hospital. He said two of the children and one adult were in a serious condition.
In all 10 houses were hit by the avalanche, and the governor's spokeswoman, Tone Hertzberg, said dozens of other houses at the foot of Sukkertoppen were evacuated as a precaution.
The avalanche let loose a day after a huge storm hit the archipelago on Friday night - one that the local paper called the worst in 30 years, with winds up to 95km/h. Hertzberg said "it would be logical" to assume the avalanche was connected to the storm.
Frank Jakobsen, a resident of Longyearbyen, told the Svalbardposten daily the avalanche was so powerful it moved several houses and poured tonnes of snow into others in the town of 2000 people.
He saw people carrying out 44-year-old Anne Kristin Jakobsen, who had been buried alive under the snow but had banged on a microwave oven to get the attention of rescue workers, according to the daily. Jakobsen was among those sent to hospital.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg wrote on Twitter that authorities were following the situation closely and "all available resources are mobilised". Extra medical staff were sent in from Tromsoe on the Norwegian mainland.
The fierce storm on Friday night also ripped off the roof of a school in Longyearbyen, sending it flying on to a soccer field. It forced the airport there to close on Friday but by Saturday afternoon it had reopened.
Svalbard, which is more than 800 kilometres north of the Norwegian mainland, is known for its stunning snow-covered mountains, fjords and glaciers. The archipelago has about 2600 residents.
