MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — Four people were in hospital on Friday, including two with critical injuries, after a grizzly bear attacked a school group in a remote part of western Canada, authorities said.

The attack happened Thursday afternoon on a trail in the Bella Coola area of British Columbia, the Provincial Health Services Authority said in a statement to AFP.

“Paramedics provided emergency medical treatment to four patients and transported them to hospital,” the statement said, noting that two of the patients had critical injuries and two others were in “serious condition.”

Seven other people received care at the scene but did not require hospitalisation, the provincial authorities added.

“Four patients remain in hospital,” the statement said, declining to provide the ages of those in hospital, citing family requests for privacy.

The Nuxalk First Nation said the attack impacted their community, posting Thursday on Facebook that there was an “aggressive bear in the area.”

The Nuxalk Nation’s school, Acwsalcta, said on Facebook that it was closed Friday “due to the bear incident.”

The school praised its staff’s “courage” during “an incredibly challenging moment,” and said it will share more information in the near future about the incident.

Veronica Schooner told the Canadian Press that her son was in the group that was attacked but he was not injured.

“He said that bear ran so close to him, but it was going after somebody else,” she told CP.

Late Thursday, the Nuxalk Nation reported that the bear remained at large, urging residents to stay indoors.

Reached by phone Friday, the Indigenous nation’s administrative office declined to confirm whether a stay-indoors order remained active.

The BC Conservation Officer Service, a wildlife body which has taken over the investigation, could not immediately be reached for comment on whether the bear had been found.