An avalanche has killed one man and injured nine other people in the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, in Norway.
Rescue workers had to work in total darkness to dig out tons of snow as the avalanche struck on Saturday from Sukkertoppen Mountain into Longyearbyen, the main town on Svalbard.
Cars were flipped over, houses were displaced from their foundations and people were buried under metres of snow and ice.
About 100 emergency workers and volunteers attended the scene, where temperatures were below freezing and extra medical staff were sent from Tromso, on the northern Norwegian mainland.
One local man in his 40s died and nine people, including four children, were rushed to hospital, where two children and one adult were declared in serious condition.
One woman was buried alive under the snow and had to bang on a microwave to alert rescue workers.
The Norwegian town of 2,000 people experiences 24-hour darkness from late November to mid-February as the sun does not rise above the horizon and the rescue operation was carried out using large torches.
"It's complete chaos here," Kine Bakkeli told Norway's NRK television after she had managed to escape from her house through a window.
A total of 10 houses were hit by the avalanche and dozens more were evacuated as a precaution.
"This is a very serious situation and we already have a tragic outcome," Svalbard Governor Kjerstin Askholt told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
The avalanche followed a huge storm on Friday, when winds of up to 60 mph hit the island of 2,600 inhabitants, which sits 500 miles north of the Norwegian mainland.
The roof of one of the town’s schools was ripped off by the strong winds and went flying into a nearby sports field.
The airport was forced to close on Friday but had reopened by Saturday afternoon.
