Group of French tourists went missing during their snowmobile ride in Canada

A group of nine people went riding near the river exits of Saint-Jean lake. While on the trip the ice broke underneath them in the dark.

Five people missing and one found dead after the snowmobiles broke the ice and went into the freezing water in Northern Quebec, said the police.

The group hired snowmobiles in the village of Saint-Michel-des-Saints, the lake often has a thick layer of ice, but it is thinner where the lake funnels into the Saguenay River.

The group was alerted by two people who rescued the third one from the water. The area was approved for snowmobiles said police spokesman Hugues Beaulieu told AFP.

Benoit L'Esperance of Montreal, a 42-year-old guide was pulled out of the water by the emergency response team and was admitted to the hospital but couldn't survive overnight, Beaulieu said, adding "five French tourists are still missing."

Other people were rescued and are in the hospital near the town of Alma and are getting treated for their injuries.

Two helicopters and Divers searched the area with the help of the police and the army on Wednesday.

"This sector was not part of a marked trail, they were off-piste," said the police spokesman.

Authorities searched throughout the night, the underwater and aerial reconnaissance was to pause until Thursday morning.

"People who know the area know that you should not go on the ice because it is very fragile due to strong currents," Gaetan Gagne, president of the Saint-Jean lake snowmobile club, told public broadcaster Radio-Canada.

However the priority, she told a press briefing, "is to find the missing as soon as possible."

"The government has been in contact since this morning with the French authorities and the families will be notified," she added.

Snowmobiles are powerful and can reach a speed of 140 kilometers per hour, are popular with Quebecers and tourists, it causes numerous accidents every year.

33000 kilometers are marked for the snowmobiling trails in the Canadian province, some think that the incident will harm the tourist attraction of the place, a snowmobile is particularly famous amongst them.

There are 20 snowmobile death every year. Last year in February, two French tourists, a mother, and her son were killed in a snowmobile accident in a Quebec nature park.