FEARS are growing for a 19-year-old kayaker from North Yorkshire, who is missing in Norway.

Norwegian Police said they were searching in the River Raundalen for Jason Raper, who is from Scarborough and who is a member of York Canoe Club.

Mr Raper is understood to have travelled to the area to take part in an extreme sports festival in Voss, in Hordaland, but his trip on the river was not part of the organised events.

Ivar Hellene, from the Norwegian Police, told reporters: "The river has a strong current. If he is still in the river, well, I fear the worst."

Mr Hellene said up to 80 people had been involved in the search, as well as helicopters and boats.

Mr Raper went missing on Saturday but the search was scaled back on Monday, although local police are still believed to be monitoring bridges along the river in the hope of finding him.

A Foreign and Commonwealth spokesman said: "We can confirm that a British national has gone missing while kayaking in Norway and we are providing consular assistance to the family."

In May, Mr Raper and colleagues from the canoe club helped raise more than £3,350 in a three-day kayak event, in memory of Kate Stainsby from who died following a canoeing accident on New Year's Day.

Miss Stainsby, a senior physiotherapy lecturer at York St John University, drowned after she became trapped underwater on an expedition at Hobdale Beck, near Sedbergh.

The 41-year-old, from Swinton near Malton, had spent New Year's Eve with her partner, Paul Simpson, and three-year-old daughter, Hannah, before she headed out to the Yorkshire Dales the next day with fellow Canoe Club members.