Russia Considering Abandoning Floating Polar Science Station Months Early - Ice Too Thin For Safety

[hatrack]

The scientific research station was placed on the ice floe in October 2012 and was planned to stay there until September. Now the floe has already started to break apart and the crew has to be evacuated as soon as possible.

Russia’s Minister of Nature Resources and Ecology Sergey Donskoy has ordered that a plan for evacuation should be ready within three days, the Ministry’s web site reads. “A collapse of the station’s ice floe poses a threat to its continued work, the lives of the crew, the environment close to the Canadian Economic Zone and to equipment and supplies”, a note from the minister reads.

Donskoy suggests that the nuclear-powered icebreaker “Yamal” could evacuate the station from the floe and move it to Severnaya Zemlya.

With ice levels in the Arctic reaching record lows, finding a suitable floe for the station proved to be a difficult task last autumn. The icebreaker carrying the station’s crew had to sail all around the North Pole before finding an ice floe solid enough to hold the station. None of the three floes that had been pre-evaluated from land as possible objects were considered safe enough.

EDIT

http://barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/05/floating-research-station-need-evacuation-23-05

[pscot]

1. The Barent's Observer?

Nice find.