Tourist groups walk onto untested ice in Lapland

Several tourist groups have walked onto newly formed ice in Lapland, prompting multiple reports to police in the past 24 hours, Yle reports. The ice on Immeljärvi, a lake in Kittilä near Levi, has not been tested for safety.

On Saturday, Finland’s Vesi.fi service listed the ice thickness as zero on a couple of lakes in northern Finland, while data was unavailable for many others. A zero reading can mean a lake is frozen but the ice is too weak to measure.

The start of the tourist season has also been visible on Lapland’s roads. In Rovaniemi, tourists stopped their car at traffic lights on Kajaanintie but in front of the wrong signal post. A local driver hit the back of their car. No one was injured.

Police said reindeer collisions have occurred across Lapland, involving both tourists and local residents.