139 fishermen stranded on drifting ice refuse evacuation unwilling to abandon their catch

Rescuers evacuated all fishermen who found themselves stranded on a drifting ice floe in the Sea of Okhotsk off Sakhalin. A total of 139 people were on the ice floe, Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations (EMERCOM) said. 

The rescue operation involved 31 specialists and 17 units of equipment.

Initial reports mentioned 300 fishermen.

On the morning of February 12, the regional EMERCOM office in Sakhalin reported that as many as 300 fishermen were drifting on an ice floe in the Sea of Okhotsk and efforts were underway to rescue them.

“We received a report that a crack up to 10 meters wide had formed in the ice, stretching from the village of Malki to the mouth of the Dolinka River, with the ice floe drifting 2.5 kilometers from shore,” authorities stated.

Rescuers arrived at the scene using a vehicle and a motorboat, and a Mi-8 helicopter was also deployed.

However, many fishermen initially refused evacuation, unwilling to abandon their catch and expensive fishing gear. They planned to wait for a boat to take them back to shore.

Drifting ice floe caught on video

Footage from the ice floe appeared online, showing around ten fishermen standing on the edge of the broken ice, waiting for help. A voice in the background mentions that a volunteer is using his boat to transport some of the stranded individuals to shore.

According to Shot Telegram channel, the 10-meter-wide ice crack stretched from Malki to the Dolinka River.

Additionally, a video showed some fishermen transferring from one broken ice floe to another, using their fishing rods to propel themselves. One person on a small ice chunk held onto one end of a fishing line, while another pulled the other end, slowly moving the floe with people aboard toward shore.

Some fishermen successfully returned to land using this improvised method. Others, as seen in the footage, were singing and dancing during their "evacuation."

Details

The Sea of Okhotsk is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a stretch of eastern Siberian coast along the west and north. Its northeast corner is the Shelikhov Gulf. The sea is named for the port of Okhotsk, itself named for the Okhota River.