Over 500 ice fishermen have been saved in an emergency operation when a fissure occurred about 2 kilometers from the coast, stranding them. People tried using smaller pieces of ice as rafts to row back to shore.
Emergency services in Russia rescued over 500 ice fishermen after they became trapped on a giant sheet of floating ice that broke off an island in far-eastern Siberia, officials said.
The rescue mission took place off the coast of the island of Sakhalin in the Sea of Okhotsk, just north of Japan. The operation lasted approximately seven hours.
"Six hundred fishermen were cut off from the coast. Rescue work is in progress," Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry's regional branch was quoted as saying.
A group of fishermen use a smaller piece of ice as a raft to try and row to the coast, as the ice floe with stranded fishermen on them slowly drifted further awayImage: picture-alliance/AP/Russia Emergency Situations Ministry
Improvised life rafts
Around 60 more fishermen managed to return to shore on their own Tuesday evening, emergency officials said.
Footage of the scene showed groups of people using smaller slabs of ice as rafts in an attempt to row to the coast, the Associated Press reported.
A video released by the Russian television network Ren TV showed some people on a small drifting ice sheet using a rope to try to pull themselves back to a group on another nearby ice slab.
Some fishermen said that, at the time of the rescue, the gigantic ice floe had already drifted 200 meters from the coast.
Safety warnings go unheeded
Wednesday's operation marked the third time in just a week that emergency services in Sakhalin had to save ice fishermen trapped on ice floes.
On January 22, approximately 300 people became stranded on a drifting ice sheet and on Sunday 600 others did.
Local authorities say fishermen continue to fish and put themselves in danger despite safety warnings.
Alerts have been raised in recent days because of dangerous conditions caused by thin and melting ice, according to the Emergency Situations Ministry.
"Contrary to common sense and the authorities' warnings, sent via text message and the media, that going out onto the ice is extremely dangerous, several hundred people decided to try their luck anyway and ventured out onto unreliable ice," the ministry said in a statement.
As Iceland marks the first loss of one of its glaciers to climate change, the melting of glaciers in other parts of the world continues to gain momentum.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/NASA
Death of a glacier
Iceland paid tribute to its Okjokull ice sheet on Sunday, holding a funeral for the first glacier lost to climate change. Known as 'Ok' for short, Okjokull lost its status as a glacier in 2014. At Sunday's ceremony, mourners unveiled a plaque announcing that all the country's main glaciers are expected to follow the same path in the next 200 years.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/J. Richard
Antarctica: Huge glacier, huge risk
The Thwaites Glacier, part of the West Antarctic ice sheet, is believed to pose the greatest risk to rising sea levels in the future. If it collapses and flows into the sea, it could trigger a 50 cm sea level rise, a NASA-funded study found earlier this year. Antarctica is home to 50 times more ice than all the world's mountain glaciers combined.
Image: Imago Images/Zuma/NASA
Patagonian beauty melting
Chile's Grey Glacier is in the Patagonian Icefields, which account for the largest expanse of ice in the southern hemisphere outside of Antarctica. Researchers are closely monitoring the melt in the region, as it could help them understand how other glaciers, such as those in Antarctica and Greenland, could look in warmer climates of the future.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/blickwinkel/E. Hummel
Alpine ice wrapped up for summer
The Rhone Glacier in Switzerland is the source of the river Rhone. For several years, scientists have been covering its ice with UV-resistant white blankets during summer, in an attempt to slow the melting. Researchers say our warming climate could eradicate two thirds of the ice in Alpine glaciers by the end of this century.
Image: Imago Images/S. Spiegl
New Zealand: From hiking to helicopter
Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand's South Island is a popular tourist destination. The glacier used to follow a cyclical pattern of advance and retreat. But since 2008, Franz Josef has been rapidly shrinking. Guides used to be able to lead tourists straight onto the glacier by foot. Now, the only way they can get there is to fly in by helicopter.
Image: DW/D. Killick
African ice disappearing
Glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro are also at risk. Back in 2012, NASA-supported researchers estimated what is left of the ice on Africa's highest mountain would be gone by 2020. Kilimanjaro is a top attraction for tourists in Tanzania, and a crucial generator of revenue in a country where the majority of people live below the poverty line.
Image: Imago Images/robertharding/C. Kober
Melting dangerously
The US state of Alaska is home to thousands of glaciers. Some of them are melting 100 times faster than scientists previously thought, a 2019 study found. Earlier this month, two Germans and an Austrian were found dead after going kayaking on Valdez Glacier Lake. Officials say the tourists were likely killed by falling glacial ice.
Image: imago/Westend61
Greenland's Jakobshavn: Growth is not enough
Jakobshaven, Greenland's largest glacier, is actually growing, a NASA study revealed earlier this year. But while one edge of the glacier has thickened slightly since 2016, the overall ice sheet is still melting rapidly, far outweighing expansion. Scientists believe the growth is due to an influx of unusually cold water from the north Atlantic - but they expect warmer waters will soon return.
