Dr Natalie Christopher has been found dead by police after a suspected rockfall event crushed her. Photo / Facebook
Dr Natalie Christopher has been found dead by police after a suspected rockfall event crushed her. Photo / Facebook
A scientist who vanished after going for a morning jog while on holiday in the Greek islands has been found "crushed to death" after she fell down a ravine, police say.
The body of Dr Natalie Christopher, who went missing on the last day of her holiday, was found atthe bottom of a ravine, Greek media reports.
The 35-year-old British woman had been missing since Monday on the island of Ikaria where she was holidaying with her 38-year-old boyfriend.
The Oxford-educated British astrophysicist is based in Cyprus but had arrived on the island on Saturday and stayed near the port of Agios Kirykos.
Her partner said he woke up on Monday morning and she wasn't there. He said he called her mobile at 10am and she told him she was out jogging and said "I can't go fast, I'll be back slowly, don't worry."
By 12pm she had not returned and he phoned the police. Dr Christopher's phone was still on, prompting her sister to plead with friends not to call her as it would drain the battery which police were using to try and locate her.
Dr Natalie Christopher was a British astrophysicist based in Cyprus. Photo / news.com.au
On Wednesday a full scale search was underway with specialised police units, a military helicopter, the coast guard, fire department and volunteers scouring the rocky cliffs for signs of her.
By the late afternoon local media reported her body had been found at the bottom of a ravine near the hotel where she was staying.
According to The Sun, a large rock, which may have been dislodged in the fall, appeared to have crushed her.
The body left where it was found so a coroner can examine her in the morning.
An inquiry is being opened into the circumstances of her death with investigators focusing on whether she tripped and fell into the ravine or other factors were at play.
The scientist was reported missing after she failed to return from a jog on the Greek island of Ikaria. Photo / Facebook
Dr Christopher is from London but based in Nicosia, Cyprus. She is an astrophysicist who manages a local initiative called Cyprus Girls Can and works at Columba-Herschel: Astronomy for Peace as well as Think Cyprus according to her social media.
Pictures online show her with smiling with friends, running youth camps, watching a recent lunar eclipse and taking part in endurance running events.
It has emerged she made a final Facebook post just hours before she went missing, where she wrote about how "beautiful" the area was.
Writing on Sunday morning, Natalie said: "Beautiful spot for swimming and deep water solo - had so much fun here today.
"Realised later there was bolted routes here too, would love to come back again to climb. Any takers?"
The incident comes three weeks after the murder of US molecular biologist Suzanne Eaton on the Greek island of Crete.
The 59-year-old had been attending a conference near the city of Chania and gone out on July 2 without taking her mobile phone, the police said.
