A woman has died and a 12-year-old child is still missing nearly two days after they were buried beneath an avalanche in bitterly cold conditions in Pallastunturi in northwestern Finnish Lapland, according to police.
The woman and child, both from Ostrobothnia, were skiing near the Pallastunturi fells on Tuesday.
Emergency services were alerted at about 4pm on Tuesday after the skiers encountered problems due to the extremely cold weather. There were very windy conditions and the temperature in the area was around -23 degrees Celsius around the time of the avalanche.
Police and rescue services launched an extensive search operation and they noticed an approximately 400-metre-wide avalanche in the area. Riding snowmobiles, rescue personnel searched a wide area of frozen terrain.
Tuesday night's search was postponed due to the dangerous cold weather conditions, according to Tuomas Korhonen, the Lapland fire department's on-duty fire chief.
The search was temporarily called off due to high winds, temperatures of nearly -30 degrees and the risk of additional avalanches, according to the local on-duty fire chief.
The woman was found dead at around 10pm on Tuesday. The search for the child continued on Wednesday, with the help of rescue dogs, but was paused overnight.
The weather conditions during Tuesday night's search were fierce, according to Veli-Pekka Kurki, from the local Voluntary Rescue Service Vapepa.
"The winds were so strong that men were almost blown away," Kurki explained, adding that due to the long distances and icy temperatures, moving around the area was only possible by snowmobile.
"Searching on skis or snowshoes was out of the question," he said.
Search resumes Thursday
Police announced Thursday morning that the search for the child would continue after an overnight pause. Searchers had been working in difficult conditions for several hours, said police, and weather conditions in the area have been dangerous.
According to police, the search will continue until the child is found.
This article was updated with new information on January 4.
Users with an Yle ID can leave comments on our news stories. You can create your Yle ID via this link. Our guidelines on commenting and moderation are explained here.