Big task ahead of Soviet icebreaker

Press, 4 July 1985, Page 13

Big task ahead of Soviet icebreaker

PA Wellington Scientists and crew trapped in the Antarctic in the Soviet supply ship Mikhail Somov could be rescued by an icebreaker within the next month, said Russian officials this week. Officials aboard the icebreaker Vladivostok at Wellington on Tuesday said they hoped to reach the icebound supply ship by late July, about two weeks before the 53 people still aboard need to start rationing fuel and food. But the head of the special rescue mission, Dr Arthur Chillingarov, a polar researcher, said the Vladivostok would have to break through 1300 km of pack-ice before she reached the stricken ship in the Amundsen Sea. “Conditions are unusual and quite serious,” he said. The icebreaker’s master, Captain Gennadi Antokhin, speaking aboard the Vladi-

vostok yesterday, said, “We don’t know how long that will take. Any plans, any predictions, will have to wait until we touch and try the ice,” he said through an interpreter. The icebreaker would stay with the Mikhail Somov until summer if she failed in her attempts to free the ice-strengthened supply ship, Dr Chillingarov said. She will leave Wellington on Friday and should reach the edge of the pack-ice in six or seven days. Dr Chillingarov said there was no concern for the safety of those aboard the trapped vessel. They are drifting helplessly in the pack-ice, enduring the 24-hour darkness, high winds, and temperatures of —3odeg. and colder, of the Antarctic winter. But Dr Chillingarov said regular radio contact had been maintained with the Mikhail Somov. The supply ship is estim-

ated to have drifted about 800 km west towards the Ross Sea region since she was trapped in mid-March, 37km off the Soviet Russkaya base in Marie Byrd Land. The nearest other habitation are the United States and New Zealand bases 3000 km away at McMurdo Sound. Dr Boris Krutsikh, director of the Soviet Institute of Arctic and Antarctic Research in Leningrad who was in the Mikhail Somov when she was trapped by storm-blown ice, said the pack-ice was being moved by sea currents. “Our best estimate is that left alone, the ship should reach open water by October or November,” he said. Soviet scientists fear the ship may be damaged or crushed by the four-metre thick ice, but Dr Chillingarov said the hull had been strengthened with wood beams and there had been no report of damage.