OSLO (AFP) - Children can rest assured that Santa Claus is alive and well, after Norway's largest newspaper apologised on Friday for announcing that he had died at the age of 227.

An obituary had appeared on Aftenposten's website on Thursday announcing that Santa had passed away after a very long and active life.

The notice added that a funeral for Santa, born on Dec 12, 1788, would be held on Dec 28 at the "Chapel of the North Pole".

It was unclear how the mischievous announcement managed to make it onto Aftenposten's site, but the newspaper has promised to "review its internal processes to establish what went wrong".

"Aftenposten has strict guidelines for both the content and use of symbols in our obituaries. This ad is a violation of these and should never have been published," said the newspaper's editor Hakon Borud.

The obituary, which did not appear in the paper's print edition, has been removed from the website.