中国雪龙号完成南极救援俄被困人员工作

“We’ve justheard that a helicopter, the Chinese icebreaker, Xuelong is heading over tocheck out our helipad just behind me. If all goes well, we’ll be off in aboutan hour’s time.“

In the end it washelp from above which came to the rescue of the stranded scientists andtourists. With their ship firmly wedged in 3-meter-thick ice, the 52 passengersfrom the Akademik Shokalskiy waited patiently for their turn in the helicopter.A dozen people at a time were flown off the ice.

“It’s first of thehelicopters to take us home.“

“Thanks, everyone.”

The Akademik gotstuck on Christmas eve. Three ships try to come and set her free—French vesselL’astrolabe, Australia’s Aurora Australis, and the Chinese Xuelong, meaningsnow dragon. All failed to break the ice and set the Akademik free. But thesnow Dragon stayed in free water, and when the weather cleared, its chopperairlifted the passengers to safety. They are now on the Aurora Australis readyfor the 1500 nautical mile journey to Tasmania.

With a rescue bysea not possible, the chopper was the last hope. The passengers foot in somelegwork and created their own temporary helipad. But not everyone has left theship, rescue coordinators in Australia are in touch with the 22 Russian crewmembers who’ve stayed on board. It’s fully operational, it’s fully prepared tobe in the ice. It’s well stored and well provisioned, so the risks will be lowfor the crew.

It was a Christmasand New Year the stranded passengers won’t forget, at least now, they caNPRoperly celebrate, but they may well face criticism too, with 3 working shipsdiverted and what’s been a difficult and expensive operation.

Johansson Samuels,Sky News, Sydney.

新闻背景：

俄罗斯科考船“绍卡利斯基院士”号被困南极超过一周后，中国、澳大利亚和法国的3艘破冰船此前的救援行动均因天气原因以及冰层厚度超出破冰能力而告失败。最终，经过多方讨论，决定用中国“雪龙”号上的直升机疏散俄罗斯科考船上的乘客。

中澳两国的救援船——中国雪龙号和澳大利亚南极光号均停泊在围困俄罗斯船的浮冰区边缘地带，它们与后者的距离分别为11.8海里和14.6海里（1海里等于1.852公里）。

经过努力，所有52名被困乘客及其行李已全部由中国直升机运出，并已转移到南极光号上。