Ice fall kills two Australian tourists in New Zealand

WELLINGTON, Jan 9 (Reuters) - An Australian tourist is dead and his brother is presumed to have died after the pair were buried under car-sized chunks of ice when part of a glacier face in New Zealand collapsed on them, police said on Friday.

The two men had ignored safety barriers and warnings and had approached the face of the Fox glacier on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island to take photographs late on Thursday afternoon.

They were buried when an estimated 100 tons of ice from an unstable overhang collapsed.

"Some of the ice blocks in the rubble were the size of large vehicles," Constable Tony LeSueur of the Hokitika Police said in a statement.

Police used an excavator working on a nearby car park to move part of the fallen ice, which was up to five metres deep, and recovered one of the bodies.

Attempts to recover the second body have been suspended due to the unstable nature of the ice.

The two men were in their early 20s, and were with their parents and extended family on holiday from Australia. The Fox and the neighbouring Franz Josef glacier are advancing, and frequently have large overhanging sections at the glacier face.

The two glaciers are popular tourist attractions, attracting more than half a million visitors a year. (Reporting by Adrian Bathgate)