Man killed by polar bear at a campsite in the Arctic region of Svalbard, Norway

A polar bear attacked and killed a man in the arctic island of Svalbard, Norway on Friday. Local officials said the attack took place around 4am at a campsite near Longyearbyen, where the bear thrashed the tent of 38-year-old Dutch citizen Johan Jacobus Kootte. He was rushed to the nearest hospital where he was pronounced dead due to his injuries.

Authorities are currently investigating the attack and have since issued a strong reminder to residents and visitors alike of the dangers of polar bears co-existing around the rugged and remote terrain of glaciers in the frozen tundra of Norway's arctic archipelago.

According to campsite owner Michelle van Dijk, there were seven campers on the site at the time, where Kootte worked on his second season as a manager. No one else was reported injured but the six other men were admitted at the hospital and treated for shock.

"He had done the right training and knew how everything worked there," she said. Svalbard officials say there had been a warning on Thursday of a polar bear roaming around Longyearbyen. Van Dijk said Koote reassured her the situation was under control.

A spokesman for the governor of Svalbard, Terje Carlsen, told the BBC the polar bear was a three-year-old male whose mother was airlifted with her cub away from town on Monday. However, their relocation was not related to the fatal attack. Experts expressed concern over the diminished hunting grounds of polar bears as the Arctic sheets continuously melt due to climate change. This has forced the bears into human populated grounds as they hunt and forage for food.

After the attack, the three-year-old bear was shot by one of the men at the campsite and was found dead in a car park by the nearby airport. A team from the Norwegian Polar institute said the same bear had also earlier broken into cabins in an area not far from the city.

Visitors are urged to sleep indoors and are given stern warnings by authorities to carry firearms at all times while moving outside of settlements.

There have only been five recorded bear attacks on humans on the island in the last 50 years. The most recent prior to this year was in 2011, where a 17-year-old British student was killed during an expedition.