A teenage boy fell into a river in North Iceland last night while helping a farmer restart electricity on the farm, RÚV reports. The boy, whose age has not been made public, was carried away by the stream and remains missing. The farmer managed to stay clear of the wave of slush that pulled the boy into the water. Extreme weather has been causing power outages across Iceland over the past two days.
The river in question is Núpá, located in Eyjafjörður, South of Akureyri. Superintendent of Northeast Iceland Police Jóhannes Sigfússon says the police were notified of the accident around 10.00pm last night.
Carried away by a wave
“There’s a home power station there and a reservoir and a dam which they were working to clear slush from the intake. They stood there up on the wall and one of them managed to escape from the wave but not the other and [he] landed in the river which took him with it.”
Search and rescue forces and police were then notified of the incident. All teams in the area attending to various weather-related calls were then sent to look for the boy. Travel was difficult, as roads to the farm were impassable. So far, the search has not been successful.
Weather remains harsh
More than 40 individuals were on call that night, including a ten-member group specialised in water rescue, divers from capital area firefighting crews, and police special forces. Further assistance has been called to the scene, and 20-25 others are on their way from Blönduós and Reykjavík to assist with the search. Conditions at the scene are extremely difficult.
“The weather has just remained very similar,” Jóhannes says. “It’s slightly windy weather and freezing so there’s high wind chill and hard to work for many hours under those conditions as people cool down. Then of course there is darkness, winter darkness here now, and in addition to that there’s slush in the river which makes it even more difficult.”
