After a 17-hour, 200-person rescue operation in which first responders used chain saws and ice pics to cut through a collapsed ice cave to track down two missing tourists, police in Iceland have called off the search and said they now believe that no one had ever been missing.
Officials in Iceland said on Monday that after examining tour operator records, they had concluded that 23 people were on the tour, not 25 as had been previously reported.
The conclusion echoed what rescuers had found at the scene, police noted. “A moment ago, the police field manager located at the scene announced that all the ice that was thought to have fallen on the people had been moved,” police said on social media. “It has come to light that no one was hidden under the ice.’’
Early on Monday rescuers resumed a frantic search that had begun one day earlier as they scrambled to locate two people believed to be missing after an ice cave partly collapsed, killing one person.
The tour group, made up of people from several nationalities, were on a guided tour of Breiðamerkurjökull glacier on Sunday when part of the cave collapsed, police said on social media on Sunday.
Rescuers found two people, one of whom died of their injuries at the scene. The other person found was taken to hospital and is reportedly in a stable condition. Both of them were American citizens, police said on Monday.
Emergency services received a call about the collapse shortly before 3pm local time (1600 BST) on Sunday, setting in motion a rescue that involved more than 100 people. The rugged terrain complicated efforts to transport equipment up to the glacier, meaning rescuers were largely limited to breaking through the ice with chainsaws and ice picks, according to the public broadcaster RÚV.
One tourist who had visited the cave just before its collapse told RÚV that the cave was between three and five metres deep.
As darkness fell, rescuers were forced to pause. “A large number of rescuers and responders have taken part in the operation,” police said, adding that the conditions were difficult.
By 7am on Monday, dozens of rescuers were back on the site, according to RÚV. The site manager told the broadcaster that efforts were being made to protect the rescuers as the conditions had been deemed unsafe on the glacier.
Images from the site showed rescuers working inside two large craters within the sand-blackened ice of the glacier in the south-eastern part of the island.
The tragedy will add to the debate about the safety of glacier trips during the warm summer months. On Sunday The Association of Icelandic Mountain Guides weighed in, calling for a full investigation and tighter regulations on ice cave tours.
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“This is a terrible event that you don’t want anyone to go through,″ Garðar Hrafn Sigurjónsson, the association’s vice-chairman, told local news site Visir.
Police said on Monday that the investigation into the incident would continue.
The crystal-blue ice cave of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier tongue has long been an attraction for tourists from around the world. It flows from Vatnajökull, Iceland’s largest glacier. Historical accounts suggest the glacier tongue advanced towards the Atlantic Ocean until around the turn of the 19th century. According to the US Geological Survey, it has been in full retreat since about 1930.
The collapse was not believed to be related to a volcanic eruption in south-west Iceland on Friday, about 185 miles (300km) from the glacier.
Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
