Skip to footer

Antarctic blizzard halts icebreaker's rescue mission

A Russian ship remains trapped in ice after a rescue vessel was forced to turn back due to poor visibility. If conditions permit, a helicopter will be used to rescue most of those on board the stranded ship. 

|
REUTERS/Andrew Peacock
The MV Akademik Shokalskiy is pictured stranded in ice in Antarctica on Sunday. A blizzard forced an Australian icebreaker to turn back before it reached the trapped Russian ship, rescuers said on Monday.

| SYDNEY

An Antarctic blizzard has halted an Australian icebreaker's attempt to reach a Russian ship trapped for a week with 74 people onboard, rescuers said on Monday.

The Akademik Shokalskiy left New Zealand on Nov. 28 on a private expedition to commemorate the 100th anniversary of an Antarctic journey led by Australian explorer Douglas Mawson.

It became trapped in the ice on Dec. 24, 100 nautical miles east of the French Antarctic station Dumont D'Urville. The 74 people aboard include scientists and tourists, many of them Australian, and 22 Russian crew.

A first rescue attempt by a Chinese icebreaker, the Snow Dragon, had to be halted because the ice was so thick.

Now another attempt, by the Aurora Australis, has been hampered by the weather.

It has had to return to open waters about 18 nautical miles from the Akademik Shokalskiy because of poor visibility, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), which is co-ordinating the rescue, said.

The Australian vessel had reached as close as about 10 nautical miles from the trapped ship before turning back.

"The weather condition is not safe for it to proceed, and it's gone back to open water," said AMSA spokeswoman Lisa Martin.

The Snow Dragon is 6.7 nautical miles from the Akademik Shokalskiy and a helicopter on board will be used to rescue all 52 passengers and some crew if weather conditions permit, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday.

Asked whether the passengers would have to see in the New Year on the stranded ship, Martin said: "It certainly looks like they will be there tomorrow."

(Reporting by Maggie Lu Yueyang; Additional reporting by Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alison Williams)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Antarctic blizzard halts icebreaker's rescue mission
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/1230/Antarctic-blizzard-halts-icebreaker-s-rescue-mission
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe