TORONTO, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Eight snowmobilers have been found safe after being missing for four days in a blizzard in Labrador.
Two groups of snowmobilers had been missing since Friday, when they were en route from the Happy Valley-Goose Bay area in central Labrador to Rigolet, about 110 miles to the northeast on the shores of Groswater Bay. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had to hold off on a ground and air search and rescue operation because of a three-day storm that dumped up to 19 inches of snow in some places, and was accompanied by whiteout conditions and high winds, the CBC reported.
Searchers on snowmobile found one man, Hubert Palliser, walking about 25 miles from Rigolet Tuesday afternoon. He told them the rest of the snowmobilers were holed up in a cabin about 12 miles away -- and that he had tried to get to Rigolet by snowmobile to get help, but ran out of gas and continued on foot.
Palliser directed rescuers to a cabin, where an RCMP helicopter was able to land and retrieve the other snowmobilers.
"We discovered everybody safe and sound inside the cabin," RCMP Cpl. Paul MacDougall told the CBC.
