Glacial Ice Falls, Wave Drowns Spectator
A Finnish tourist standing on shore drowned when a huge block of glacial ice dropped into a lake and caused a wave that swept him into the frigid water, local news reports said.
The 34-year-old victim, who was not identified, was on land about 20 feet from the edge of a small, deep lake when the wave hit him on Wednesday, the Dagbladet newspaper reported on Thursday.
A large group of tourists was watching when Svartisen, a glacier near the northern Norway town of Mo I Rana, dropped chunks of ice into the ocean, the newspaper reported.
“The Finnish tourist was . . . about 35 meters (112 feet) from the glacier itself. He probably lost his balance when the mass of water hit him,” acting sheriff Terje Storroe of Rana said.
Sightseers fled the wave that crashed onto the shore and watched helplessly as the tourist was washed into the lake, Dagbladet said.
“It would have been madness for anyone to have tried to swim out to him in that icy water,” Storroe said.
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