In a press release the Far Eastern Department for Emergency Situations has reported that four ships, a survey cuter, a fishing seiner and two bargets attached to the vessels, had been trapped in ice in the Sea of Okhotsk on January 18. However nine out of 14 sailors had been evacuated by emergency crews.
The ships were heading for winter anchorage at the settlement of Adzhan, Khabarovsk region, and on the route they stuck in the ice somewhere 100 kilometers off the region’s coast. The regional Department for Emergency Situations had sent an emergency rescue team has been sent in search of the ships by an AN-74 aircraft as soon as they get a distress signal from a radio buoy.
Mi-8 helicopter took the rescued crew members to the town of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur. Their conditions are reported as normal. Five sailors remain on the trapped ships for controlling the vessels until they reach the ice-free water, says a report. Emergency choppers have delivered food supplies and fuel on board the ships.
In the meantime the department got another emergency distress signal from the Sea of Okhtck. The trawler Ostrov Simushir stranded on the sea with a crew of 29 on board after its engines stop as the ship got snagged on its own fishing nets.
