Some of the ships in Yakutia rescued

Of the 28 vessels carried away by drifting ice on the Yana River, Far East, 20 have already been rescued, reported the Khabarovsk-based Far Eastern Regional Center of the Russian emergencies ministry on Monday.

The crew of the rescued ships refused to be carried off to the shore by helicopters, saying they preferred to stay aboard.

As reported earlier, 28 ships broke away in the Nizhnaya Yana river port and were carried by ice floes towards the Arctic Ocean. Seven crew were evacuated from two vessels, one of which, a motorship, ran aground, and another was holed. The hulls of some ships were deformed by the pressure of ice floes.

Yakutia has set up an emergency commission to rescue the fleet and its crew, said the Far Eastern Regional Center.