Cruise ship sinking after hitting ice
A Norwegian passenger boat in the area 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 15:24 (AEDT), 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.
He had told Reuters earlier the number was 100.
“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 told Reuters Television by satellite phone from the Norwegian ship, the Nordnorge.
He said the rescue had gone smoothly. “No one was hysterical, they were just sitting there nice and quiet, because we knew there were ships coming.”
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