Ice is 30cm thick
Over 600 crewmembers are on board the 10 Russian fishing and transport boats that have been gripped by pack ice in Sakhalin Bay, in the Okhotsk Sea.
The Sodruzhestvo factory ship and the Professor Kizevetter research vessel have sent SOS signals.
The two ships are 12 miles outside mainland Russia. The air temperature in the disaster area has dropped to 22 degrees Celsius below zero and is expected to lower further still.
Ice is 30 centimetres thick. The rescue tugs Irbis, Predanny and Rubin have set out for the ships in distress.
The first of the tugs is due to approach the ice edge on Friday night, the other two, – on January 2nd.
Source: Russian Voice
