February 04, 2007	Sunday	Muharram 15, 1428

VLADIVOSTOK (Russia), Feb 3: A total of 442 fishermen, many of them drunk, were rescued on Saturday from ice floes off the island of Sakhalin in eastern Russia after a massive ice sheet broke from the shore, officials said.

“The last people, who had refused to leave their equipment and catch behind, were persuaded... They were taken away in special baskets fixed to a helicopter,” a local official from the emergency situations ministry told AFP.

Around 70 fishermen had refused to be rescued without their equipment.

Interfax news agency cited a ministry official as saying that many of the fishermen plucked from the ice floes were in a state of “heavy alcoholic intoxication”. Despite repeated warnings from the authorities about the risks involved, particularly during this year’ unusually mild winter in Russia, fishing through holes drilled in the ice remains a time-honoured tradition.

Practitioners, often fortified with a supply of strong alcohol and armed with heavy gear, including drills, rods and nets, can stray far from the shore in search of favourable fishing grounds.

Fishermen regularly have to be rescued from ice floes in Russia and are often reluctant to part with the heavy drills they use to bore through the ice, which can cost hundreds of dollars.

Around a third of the mostly poor population of Sakhalin, a large forested island with massive oil and gas reserves located just north of Japan, is estimated to survive on fishing.

On Saturday, around 3,000 people came out to fish on the ice sheet along Sakhalin’ eastern shore in defiance of specific warnings from local emergency services, the ministry official said.

Strong winds then prised off a section of the ice measuring around 25 square kilometres, which then broke up into smaller ice floes that drifted some two kilometres from the shore.

Because of mild conditions, the ice around Sakhalin is currently only about 10 centimetres thick, compared to a normal winter thickness of at least 50 centimetres.

A total of 90 personnel, three helicopters and 20 boats were mobilised for the rescue operation, ferrying fishermen from the ice floes to the shore over several hours, the official said.—AFP