RACE WITH DEATH.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20266, 28 March 1934, Page 1

RACE WITH DEATH.

Marooned Crew in Peril in Blizzard. MOSCOW, March 24. The intensive efforts of the Soviet Government to rescue the wrecked crew of the steamer Cbelvaskin, who have been marooned on the ice in the Arctic Circle for nearly a month, have developed into a race with death. The last message from the heroic party of castaways tapped out the news on Sunday that portion of the landing-place cleared on the ice cake for aeroplane rescuers had split off before the force of the coming storm. A further wireless communication was smothered beneath a subsequent blizzard, which also prevented a squadron of giant planes, ordered in from the Far East, from reaching the rescue workers’ base at Chavarovsk. The most powerful Russian icebreaker, the Krassin, has hurried out of the repair dock in far-away Kronstadt. on the Bay of Finland, in the faint hope that the four weeks’ journey round Scandanavia may possibly be completed in time to render aid. The Government has now placed at the disposal of the rescue staff two single-motored non-rigid airships of 3000 and 5000 cubic metres capacity, which already are speeding north in special freight trains. They will be utilised only in the last extremity, as they have never yet been operated under Arctic conditions.