On September 20 last year, a 33-kilometre (20-mile) mass of rock and ice broke off a glacier and buried an entire village in the Russian republic of North Ossetia.

The avalanche was known to have killed 127 people, but only 19 bodies were found.

Among those listed missing, presumed dead was Bodrov Jr., a 30-year-old movie actor and director who was with a 24-strong film crew shooting on location in the mountains at the time of the avalanche.

Bodrov, star of nearly a dozen movies since his debut in the 1996 Oscar-nominated "Prisoner of the Mountains" had been tipped for a glittering future.

According to witnesses quoted by NTV, the film crew's cars had entered the tunnel just before the massive rock and snow slide.

Although all hope quickly evaporated of finding any survivors, a rescue team has continued to search with heavy equipment through the rocks at the tunnel entrance, stepping up their work once the snow melted with the onset of spring.

The tunnel turned out to be full of water and can only be inspected after the water is pumped out, said the North Ossetian emergencies minister Boris Degoyev, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

SPACE.WIRE