Desperate search for six teenage boys missing after avalanche in Tyva Republic

One of the group of 14 to 18 year olds managed to escape the avalanche and raised the alarm. The boys were evidently seeking to place 'good luck' flags on a mountain near the Russian border with Mongolia, some 5,000 kilometres east of Moscow.

The placing of such flags is done because of a local legend, it is claimed. 

'The tragedy happened because of the reckless venture undertaken by the boys,' complained Russia's Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov in a tweet. 'Now we are trying to find out where their parents are.'

Tyva leader Sholban Kara-ool convened an urgent meeting on the incident in regional capital Kyzyl and sent two senior officials to the site. 

Earlier reports suggested that seven teenagers were trapped by the avalanche and that they were all aged 16 to 17 and from a local secondary school.

The accident happened  6 km from the village of Mugur-Aksy in Tyva's Mongun-Taiginsky distinct.

When the 17 year old boy raised the alarm, an emergency operation swung into operation.

'The avalanche is 5-to-6 metres deep, 200 metres wide and 600 metres long', a source in the Russian national emergency situation management centre told Itar-Tass.

'The rescuers from the Tyva and Southern Siberian search-and-rescue units and the Siberian regional centre of sport training and rehabilitation of rescuers 'Yergaki' rushed to the avalanche site'.