Russia's Krasin and Admiral Makarov icebreakers began early on Monday a rescue operation to release a refrigerator vessel caught in heavy ice floe in the Sea of Okhotsk, the Transport Ministry spokesman said.
The Bereg Nadezhdy ship, the Professor Kizevetter research vessel, and the Sodruzhestvo mother fishery ship, carrying all together more than 400 people, became trapped in two-meter-thick ice in the Sea of Okhotsk on December 31. Two other ships, the Mys Yelizavety and the Anton Gurin, got stuck three days later.
On Friday and Saturday, the Admiral Makarov released the Professor Kizevetter and the Mys Yelizavety vessels from the ice trap, while the Anton Gurin managed to cope with the situation on its own.
The two icebreakers began towing the Bereg Nadezhdy to thinner ice in the early hours of Monday, the spokesman said, adding that the rescue operation was hampered by strong winds, low air temperatures and heavy ice floe in the area.
Freeing the Sodruzhestvo is expected to be the most difficult task as Admiral Makarov and Krasin would have to coordinate their efforts to clear a wide canal in a thick ice floe to allow a wide-body vessel to reach open waters.
The Krasin icebreaker was built in 1976 and named after the legendary Soviet icebreaker that was engaged in the 1928 operation to rescue the Italian polar expedition led by Umberto Nobile.
MOSCOW, January 10 (RIA Novosti)
