Two per­sons died during a moun­tain hike in Horn­sund. They were a woman and a man who belon­ged to the crew of the Polish rese­arch sta­ti­on in Horn­sund. They had set out for a pri­va­te tour on Fri­day but did not return until the agreed time on Sun­day mor­ning, so the remai­ning sta­ti­on crew star­ted a search.

Map of Horn­sund show­ing the rese­arch sta­ti­on and the moun­tain Kam­kro­na (acci­dent site). © topo­gra­phic base: Nor­we­gi­an Polar Insti­tu­te.

They had ascen­ded the moun­tain Kam­kro­na, which is part of Sofie­kam­men, a long, steep ridge on the west side of Bur­ger­buk­ta. Kam­kro­na is about 8 km east of the rese­arch sta­ti­on and 770 met­res high, the east side of the moun­tain is very steep.

The moun­tain ridge Sofie­kam­men on the west side of Bur­ger­buk­ta in Horn­sund. Kam­kro­na is a peak appro­xi­m­ate­ly in the midd­le.

Accor­ding to a press release by the Sys­sel­man­nen the two vic­tims died during a fall of seve­ral hundred met­res in an ava­lan­che. No fur­ther details are public so far. The vic­tims were reco­ver­ed by SAR forces of the Sys­sel­man­nen and brought to Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Update: Accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten, Sys­sel­man­nen poli­ce offi­cer Anders Hau­ge­rud told the Nor­we­gi­an news agen­cy NTB that the two appear to have step­ped out on an over­han­ging snow bank on the moun­tain top. This was later con­firm­ed.

As the fami­lies are infor­med, the names of the two decea­sed have been offi­ci­al­ly released. They were Anna Gór­s­ka and Mich­al Sawi­cki. Both had been working at the sta­ti­on, Anna as meteo­ro­lo­gist and Mich­al as geo­phy­si­cist.