Polar bear attacks sleeping tourist in Norway

A man was brutally attacked by a polar bear as he camped out with friends on a remote Arctic island on the eve of the solar eclipse.

Jakub Moravec, 37, from Prague, Czech Republic, had travelled to the Svalbard islands in Norway"s Arctic, but faced a premature end to the excursion after the bear ripped through his tent and attacked him.

Now recovering from his horrific ordeal in hospital, he said: ‘We were sleeping in the tent and when I woke up the polar bear was standing on top of me. It went straight to my head. Luckily my colleague shot it".

Zuzanna Hakova, who was camping with Mr.Moravec, explained how her mother shot the bear three times with a revolver.

‘We woke to shouts of "Bear! Bear”", she said.

‘We had a rifle on the outside of each tent and we also had a revolver in our tent.

‘The ones being attacked had no chance of getting their weapon, so my mother took her revolver and shot at the bear three times".

The remains of the polar bear which attached Jakub Moravec (Picture: Hakon Mosvold Larsen/AFP/Getty Images)

He is now being treated at hospital in Longyearbyen, the islands" capital, after enduring injuries to his face and arm.

Police spokesman Vidar Aesen has said that the bear was eventually hunted down and killed by authorities.

More than 2,000 tourists were expected to descend on the Svalbard Islands, due to the territory being only one of only two places on land where the eclipse was fully visible.