LONDON, Nov 23: More than 150 passengers and crew took to lifeboats in Antarctic waters on Friday after their cruise ship hit an object and began taking on water through a hole in the hull, Britain’s Coast Guard said.

No injuries were reported, and evacuees from the Liberian-flagged Explorer were boarding another cruise ship, Endeavour, near the South Shetland Islands, before being transferred later to a larger ship, said Henry Purbrick, watch officer at the Coast Guard centre in Falmouth, England.

“Latest reports are that all persons are safe and accounted for,” Coast Guard spokesman Fred Caygill said.

“We believed it has been hulled, it has a hole the size of a fist and some cracking in the hull of the ship, it’s taking water and it’s listing about 21 degrees,” Mr Caygill told AP Radio.—AP