A NORTH-EAST teenager has died in Finland after he fell 35ft down a manhole at a nuclear power plant.

Kevin Horner, 19, from Hartlepool, was working on the construction site in Olkiluoto when he fell on Monday, September 18.

He had been working on the site for only seven days.

He was taken to a hospital 30 miles away, in the city of Pori, where he was treated for head injuries.

Doctors spent five days trying to save him as a machine kept him alive, but he died on September 23.

His uncle, Paul Jarrington, 43, from Suffolk, was his foreman on the Rimec Group building site, where Mr Horner fell through boards that were covering a manhole.

Mr Jarrington said: "He was such a likeable lad and people from all over the world have been in touch to say how much they will miss him.

"I am devastated. I took him over there and I had to bring him back. He had only been over for a week.

"I had been working with him about a year, so we were very close. I had taken him to Wales to work and he was fully trained up with safety.

"He had such a promising future and was on line to make good money and he wanted to see a bit of the world, but now he will not get that chance.

"It was not his fault. It was not something he was working on."

His parents, Jill and Kevin Horner, were too upset to speak to the media.

Mr Horner was one of five children, being brother to Kirsty, Chelsea, Jason and Jade.

The Foreign Office has been in contact with his family and has been providing assistance.

A funeral service of thanksgiving will be held at 10.20am on Friday in Stranton Grange Cemetery Chapel, Hartlepool