Glacier buries Russian village; dozens missing

? A 500-foot-high chunk of glacier crashed down a Caucasus mountainside, burying a village in ice, rocks and mud and leaving as many as 100 people missing and feared dead Saturday among them, a Russian movie star and his film crew.

One body was found, and authorities said 17 people whose houses were destroyed were considered dead.

Part of the village of Nizhny Karmadon was destroyed, a government spokeswoman in Moscow said. The village of about 50 inhabitants was almost entirely covered in ice, an emergency official at the scene said.

Ninety-four people were reported missing by relatives, said Mikhail Shatalov, prime minister of the Russian republic of North Ossetia. In televised comments, he said the number might be higher because hikers often make weekend trips into the mountains.

Overall, officials suspect the number of missing to total about 100, including 40 people with a film crew led by actor-director Sergei Bodrov Jr., who was shooting a movie in the mountains, said Marina Ryklina, an Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman in Moscow.

The avalanche late Friday raged down the Karmadon Gorge in the Russian republic of North Ossetia after a glacier 495 feet tall broke off from below a peak in the rugged Caucasus Mountains, gathering a mix of mud, rocks and uprooted tree trunks in its path.

Moving at more than 62 mph, the avalanche slid 20 miles before it stopped on the Gizel-Karmadon highway about six miles from the regional capital of Vladikavkaz.

Seen from the road, the path of destruction was about 300-400 yards wide.