Helicopters Rescue Polar Researchers Trapped in Ice

Two South African helicopters yesterday airlifted the last of 79 Russian scientists from a research ship which has been marooned in the encroaching Antarctic pack ice for nearly three weeks.

With temperatures dropping to minus 33C, rations running low and only a collection of old Bollywood movies to while away the long hours of winter darkness, the emergency evacuation was greeted with relief.

As well as the last of the polar researchers, the helicopters yesterday took off 11 non-essential crew from the Magdalena Oldendorff, a German-registered vessel which was frozen in when ice closed off a bay on the Princess Astrid coast on June 11.

Another 17 crew members have remained on board in the hope that an Argentine icebreaker will arrive in the area shortly and clear a passage for the stranded ship, which lies marooned 500 miles from the ice shelf. A Swedish icebreaker has also left Cape Town to join the operation.

The ice surrounding the Magdalena Oldendorff is already nearly 2ft thick but Russian expedition officials insisted there was no immediate danger to those who remained on board. "We have evacuated all the people we needed to move now," said Vasily Kaliazin, of the Antarctic Logistics Centre. "The second chopper has landed safely and the [rescue] ship is steaming north."

Tanya Hacker, of the Dutch-owned Smit Marine salvage company in Cape Town, said the helicopters left a South African rescue ship, the Agulhas, shortly after dawn, flew 205 nautical miles (380km) to the Magdalena Oldendorff and returned four hours later with the last eight scientists and 11 non-essential crew.

Flying close to the limits of their range, the helicopters have ferried 90 people across ice floes as the hours of daylight grew shorter and shorter in the past week.

The South African air force crews also delivered much-needed supplies to the stranded scientists, but were forced to halt their rescue mission when the weather worsened last weekend.

There were fears the South African rescue ship was also in danger of becoming trapped by rapidly thickening ice that its strengthened hull would not be able to cut through.

The research expedition is believed to have stayed late in the season waiting for the ice to harden enough to allow them to unload heavy machinery.

Mr Kaliazin said the owners of the Magdalena Oldendorff would decide later today whether to extend the charter of the Agulhas.

"The Magdalena Oldendorff will not be left to winter there, but it is not clear at this stage how we will get her out," he added.