Icebreakers Admiral Makarov and Moskva: Image via Wikipedia
The icebreaker Admiral Makarov has reached its destination in the Sea of Okhotsk and the rescue operation to free the ships trapped in the ice has begun. One trawler has been escorted to safety. But there are “hummocks” in the ice which is upto 2 m thick in places. The second icebreaker Magadan is now itself stuck in the ice and the Admiral Makarov is racing to its rescue.
Itar-Tass reports:
VLADIVOSTOK, January 5 (Itar-Tass)The Admiral Makarov icebreaker that took the Mys Yelizavety to the clear waters is now moving at full tilt to help the icebreaker Magadan, which took part in the escorting effort but got stuck in the ice itself. Given that the Magadan, too, has stuck in the thick ice filling the spaces of the Sakhalin Bay, the number of ships drifting amid ice floes towards the shore has again increased to five.
A total of three ships – the Sodruzhetsvo floating factory, the Bereg Nadezhny refrigerating ship, and the Professor Kizivetter, all of them registered in the port of Vladivostok – found themselves stranded in the ice December 30. They are located at a distance of eleven to twelve nautical miles away from Sakhalin’s shore. One more ship, the Anton Gurin trawler registered in St Petersburg, joined the trapped ships January 3.
The Magadan, a port area icebreaker, has the technical characteristics largely inferior to those of the Admiral Makarov. It has a length of 88 meters and a capacity of 13,000 horse-powers. The Admiral Makarov has the length of 135 meters and the capacity for 12,000 horse-powers.
A mass of ice floes has been driven into the Sakhalin Bay by northern winds. The ice is covered with hummocks and its thickness reaches 2 meters in some spots. The total number of seamen trapped by the ice at present stands at around 500. The Sodruzhestvo floating factory has the largest crew of 340 persons.
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