ANTARCTIC:Four Irish people were among more than 150 passengers and crew who escaped unhurt after their cruise ship hit ice in the Antarctic and started sinking yesterday, the ship's owner and coast guard officials said. Cesar Illianoin Buenos Aires.
A Norwegian passenger boat in the area, the NordNorge, safely picked up all the occupants of the Explorer from the lifeboats they used to flee the ship when it ran into problems off King George Island in Antarctica at 5.24am, the Explorer's owners said.
A spokesman for Gap Adventures, the Canadian travel company that owns the vessel, said 154 passengers and crew had been on board the ship.
"We were passing through ice as usual - we do that every day - but this time something hit the hold and we got a little leakage downstairs," the Explorer's first officer, Peter Svensson, said.
The rescue had gone smoothly, he said. "No one was hysterical - they were just sitting there nice and quiet, because we knew there were ships coming."
The passengers and crew were being taken to Chile's Eduardo Frei base in the Antarctic, from where they would later be flown to Punta Arenas in southern Chile, a Chilean navy commander told local television.
The stricken vessel had set sail from the Argentine port of Ushuaia last week and was heading south toward the icy continent.
Pictures taken from Chilean navy helicopters showed the vessel listing severely in dark grey waters. At least 10 lifeboats and rafts could be seen.
"Apparently they crashed into an iceberg," said Pedro Tuhay of the Argentine coast guard. "The boat's got a 23-degree list, but it's keeping steady very well."
Arnvid Hansen, the captain of the NordNorge, said the passengers were cold but not suffering from hypothermia.
"It was no problem to get them on board. They were picked up from the lifeboats . . . and this operation took around one hour.
"The passengers are in our premier lounge having warm food and drying their clothes on board. Some are cold but none has hypothermia. We are giving them as many clothes as we can."
John Shears, from the British Antarctic Survey, said he had been a passenger on Explorer and said it was well equipped to deal with the challenging conditions in the Antarctic. "I was surprised to hear what had happened. It is ice-strengthened and designed to operate down there and it runs a good safety operation," he said.
Gap Adventures spokeswoman Susan Hayes told CNN the vessel "didn't hit an iceberg, it hit some ice . . . There are ice floes, but it didn't hit a huge iceberg."
The Explorer usually makes two-week cruises around the Antarctic, costing some £4,000 (€5,550) per cabin. Smaller than most cruise ships, it is able to enter narrower bays off the continent and scientists are on board to brief passengers on the region's geology and climate change. - (Additional reporting Guardian/PA)