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GIZEL, Russia – A 500-foot-high chunk of glacier crashed down a Caucasus mountainside, burying a village in ice, rocks and mud and leaving as many as 100 people missing and feared dead Saturday — among them, a popular Russian action star who was filming a movie. 

Part of the village of Nizhny Karmadon was destroyed, a government spokeswoman in Moscow said. The village, home to about 50 people, was almost entirely covered in ice, leaving little chance of finding anyone alive there, an emergency official at the scene said. 

At least 86 people were missing, said Lt. Gen. Ivan Teterin, the Emergency Situation Ministry official heading the search, including 17 people whose houses were destroyed in the village of Nizhny Karmadon, six of them children. The missing also included hikers and 40 people with the crew led by actor-director Sergei Bodrov Jr., said Marina Ryklina, a ministry spokeswoman in Moscow. 

She said officials suspected the total number of missing was about 100. 

The avalanche raged down the Karmadon Gorge in the Russian republic of North Ossetia late Friday after a glacier 495 feet tall broke off from below a peak in the rugged Caucasus Mountains, gathering a mix of mud, rocks and uprooted tree trunks its path. 

Moving at more than 62 mph, the avalanche slid 20 miles before it stopped on the Gizel-Karmadon highway about 6 miles from the regional capital of Vladikavkaz. 

Seen from the road, the path of destruction was about 300-400 yards wide. 

Teterin said that one man from the area near Nizhny Karmadon was found dead, his body seriously damaged. A spokesman for North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov said four bodies were found, the Interfax news agency reported. 

Eight houses and a three-story sanatorium in the village were destroyed, but it was unclear whether anyone was in the sanatorium at the time, Teterin said. He said three people were plucked from the area near the avalanche by helicopters and 31 others found and taken to safety by rescuers. 

Mikhail Shatalov, the prime minister of North Ossetia, a tiny region about 940 miles southeast of Moscow, told the ITAR-Tass news agency that up to 100 people were feared dead. 

Bodrov had been filming a movie with a crew of 27 people in the area — where he has made movies in the past. Along with the crew were 13 drivers and other people who were also among the missing, Ryklina said. 

Mikhail Maltsev, a spokesman for STV film company, told Echo of Moscow radio that Bodrov’s crew had been filming a movie for the company in the mountains near the site of the avalanche. 

In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the avalanche was “truly a great tragedy.” 

“The main task is to find the missing people, restore the region’s infrastructure, I mean electric lines and vital necessities,” he told reporters after meeting Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov. 

Gulya Revazova, a spokeswoman for North Ossetia’s traffic police, said that two traffic police officers had accompanied the Bodrov’s group and were among the missing. 

Two border guards patrolling nearby also were missing as of Friday night, the emergency official said. The area is near the border with the former Soviet republic of Georgia. 

Several tourist campsites are located in the gorge where the glacier fell, but it was unclear whether they had been in the avalanche’s path. 

Ambulances and officials from North Ossetia and the nearby republic of Ingushetia converged Saturday on the blocked highway. Rescuers went over the ice and mud on foot to look for survivors. 

Murat Batayev, head of the rescue service of the nearby republic of Ingushetia, said in the late morning that 25 people had been rescued. He did not elaborate. 

Bodrov is best known for his roles in the Russian action movies “Brother” and “Brother 2.” His father is an acclaimed director and Bodrov Jr., 30, has starred in some of his films, including the acclaimed “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” set in the same mountains where he went missing Friday.