Woman disappears while trying to save her dog in Alaska ice

Alaska authorities are planning to resume efforts to recover the body of a woman who is believed to have been swept under the ice of a partially frozen river while trying to rescue her dog.

The woman, whose identity has not been made public, was walking Saturday along the North Fork Eagle River Trail near Anchorage with a man and their dogs when one of the dogs went into the river.

According to authorities, the couple entered the water to search for the dog, but the woman disappeared under the water and did not resurface. They believe she was swept under the ice and downriver.

The state Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) Alaska State Troopers division said in a dispatch that teams across several agencies, including the DPS, Alaska Wildlife Troopers, Anchorage Police Department and Anchorage Fire Department, worked to locate the woman under the Eagle River ice “at several areas of interest” but had not found her body as of Sunday evening.

Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team posted online that it had to pause search efforts due to “the risk to the team (working in the dark on thin ice over moving water).”

Anchorage averages less than six hours of daylight daily in December.