The Admiral Makarov and Krasin icebreakers have resumed their effort to tow the Bereg Nadezhdy refrigerator vessel toward clear waters, the Far Eastern Shipping Company said Thursday.
Company spokeswoman Tatyana Kulikova said the rescue effort resumed early Thursday local time (Wednesday evening Moscow time), with the Krasin leading the convoy. The Victoria tanker has been dispatched to refuel the ships.
The rescue effort has been hampered by strong winds, low visibility and shifting ice floes. The ships have to cover about 45 miles, after which the icebreakers will return for the Sodruzhestvo mother fishery ship they had earlier left in a safe area.
The Bereg Nadezhdy ship, the Professor Kizevetter research vessel, and the Sodruzhestvo mother fishery ship, carrying altogether over 400 people, got stuck in two-meter-thick ice in the Sea of Okhotsk on December 31. Two other ships, the Mys Yelizavety and the Anton Gurin, became trapped a few days later.
The Admiral Makarov released the Professor Kizevetter and the Mys Yelizavety vessels from the ice trap, while the Anton Gurin managed to cope on its own.
VLADIVOSTOK, January 20 (RIA Novosti)
