Rescuers searching for a British scientist who disappeared on the Aegean island of Ikaria have found her body at the bottom of a ravine.

Natalie Christopher, 35, was found less than a mile from the hotel where she was on holiday with her partner.

Emergency service staff who discovered the Anglo-Cypriot astrophysicist, told the country’s public broadcaster ERT on Wednesday evening that a large rock had dislodged as she fell, causing multiple head injuries.

The woman’s body will be kept overnight at the spot so a coroner can examine it on Thursday morning.

Police said an investigation would be launched into the circumstances of her death, focusing on whether she had slipped or if other factors had contributed to her fall.

Firefighters, soldiers, volunteers, coastguard officials and more than 40 police officers had joined the search for Christopher, an extreme sports enthusiast, when she was reported missing after apparently failing to return from an early morning jog on Monday.

Her Cypriot boyfriend informed the police when she failed to return to their hotel in the popular area of Kerame, in the north of the island. He told them she had left while he was asleep and that when he phoned her mid-morning she told him she had gone jogging.

Greece’s police spokesman Theodore Chronopoulos said: “He called her around 10am to ask where she was. At around midday when she still hadn’t shown up he became worried and informed the police.”

He confirmed that blood-stained linen found in the couple’s room had been sent to a laboratory for DNA testing.

Christopher lived in the Cypriot capital, Nicosia, and was a much respected peace activist who had long campaigned for the ethnically divided island’s reunification.

During the search for her, both Greek and Turkish Cypriots expressed horror at her disappearance and pleaded for information on her whereabouts.