A Russian fishing vessel, the Sparta, is trapped in heavy ice after it received a hole in the hull near the shores of Antarctica, Alexander Savelyev, a spokesman for the Russian Agency for Fisheries, said on Friday.
“The vessel received a hole in the hull below the waterline… The captain of the vessel made a distress call,” Savelyev said.
There are 32 people on board of the vessel, including 16 citizens of Indonesia and one scientific observer from Ukraine. The ship is stranded in the southeastern part of the Ross Sea.
He said, a Norwegian fishing vessel was some 20 nautical miles from the Sparta after it received a call of distress, but failed to approach the Russian ship due to heavy ice floe.