May Day! Beijing time (Beijing time unless otherwise specified) At 5 o'clock on December 25, 2013, at 66 degrees 52 minutes south latitude and 144 degrees 19 minutes east longitude, the Russian polar scientific research ship Akademik Shokalskiyissued a highest-level distress signal. At this time, the ship was located in the waters of the Federal Bay near the south magnetic pole, a region known for its thick ice and bad weather.

Akademik Shokalskiy was built in 1982 and was first used in marine research. After the transformation in 1988, the polar research began. When the ship was trapped, there were 74 people on board. In addition to 22 crew members, there were an Australian scientific team and a group of tourists from many countries.

This trip to Antarctica was the first time in 22 years since the construction of Akademik Shokalskiy. The ship began its Antarctic journey on November 27, planning to resume the Antarctic expedition 100 years ago by Australian explorer Douglas Mwuson.

Before the distress signal was issued, the Akademik Shokalskiy had been trapped in the ice for almost a day and a night. Like an ant dropped into the paste, it unnecessarily moved forwards, backwards, forwards, and backwards in the ice floes of Antarctica, trying to escape itself.However as an “ice class” ship, Akademik Shokalskiydoes not have the ability to break ice. At this time, the wind direction was turned to the southwest and gradually strengthened. The snowstorm caused the floating ice to slowly gather and freeze, and the engine had stopped working.

Captain Igor Kiselev of Akademik Shokalskiy told Southern Weekly reporters that when the signal of "MAY DAY" was issued, the ship was squeezed by the floating ice and cracks appeared near the waterline of the shell of Akademik Shokalskiy. Sailors were already filling leaks in the cabin with welding torches. The satellite cloud image of the Australian Search and Rescue Centre showed that the snowstorm would come again on December 26.

The signal was first sent to the British Search and Rescue Centre, and then quickly transferred to the Australian Search and Rescue Centre in the nearest sea area. At 5:50 on December 25, 2013, the Australian Search and Rescue Centre sent the highest-level rescue signal to the three polar scientific research vessels in the Antarctic waters with the ability to operate on ice—the Chinese “Xue Long” and the Australian “Australis”and the French “Astrolabe”.

The "May Day" signal meant that there’s ship in danger of sinking, and who receiving the signal must stop all the work and immediately go to rescue. The closest was the Chinese polar scientific research ship "Xue Long" 600 nautical miles away.

Zero experience rescue

“This was not the time to consider whether there’s any previous experience.”

When receiving the distress signal, the "Xue Long" was sailing from the Antarctic "Zhongshan Station" to the Ross Sea near the Antarctic continent with 101 people on board. This was the 30th Antarctic expedition in China and it began in Shanghai on November 7, 2013. The "Xue Long"was going to perform the Antarctic voyage mission for the first time and planned to return to China on April 10, 2014.

Qu Tanzhou, director of the Polar Expedition Office of the State Oceanic Administration, told Southern Weekly that after receiving the news, the "Xue Long" immediately adjusted the planned route to the southeast and went to the Russian ship in distress at a maximum speed of 15 knots.

This was the first time that the "Xue Long" participated in the rescue operation, and the last large-scale Antarctic rescue operationwhich China participated was the search and rescue operation of the missing people of Korea’s Antarctic Sejong Base scientific research team in 2003.

We must go because we have this ability, this was not the time to consider whether there’s any previous experience." Qu Tanzhou said.

The "Xue Long" was built in Ukraine in 1993 and was imported into China that year. At present, it is the only ship in China capable of traveling in polar ice. "Xue Long" has a maximum speed of 17.9 knots and belongs to the class B1 (lowest) icebreaker. It can continuously break 1.2 meters (including 0.2 meters of snow) at 1.5 knots.

With a distance of 600 nautical miles, it takes at least 2 days even if sailing at full speed. In order to make a short cut, the "Xue Long" ventured through the westerly cyclone center with a maximum wind force of 11 and rushed to the location of the "Akademik Shokalskiy". Zhang Jiansong, a journalist accompanying the Xue Long, recorded the details of the "Xue Long" crossing the cyclone center on the blog: On the surface of the sea, it was covered by heavy fog, with strong wind and snow, the white waves were soaring, and the visibility was extremely poor. Under the influence of wind and surge, the ship's hull shook violently, and many of the team members reviewed the pain of seasickness.

Yuan Shaohong, who had served as the captain of the "Xue Long" for 10 years, said that under normal circumstances, when meeting terrible weather the "Xue Long" will go to the ice floe to avoid wind and the impact of icebergs. "We were very new to this sea area, and it was the first time for us to take this route." Qu Tanzhou said.

The situation of the "Akademik Shokalskiy" continued to deteriorate. The rescue boat did not come, but the iceberg slowly drifted towards. At first the iceberg was so far that could only be seen in the telescope. By November 26, the captain Igor Kiselev could see the iceberg with his naked eyesin his cockpit. Kiselev recalled that lacking of detection equipment, it was impossible to judge the specific scale, "but we are really in danger."

Glaciologist Douglas McAyer, who has been studying iceberg movement for a long time at McMurdo Station in Antarctica of the United States, told Southern Weekly that even an iceberg was looked like a tiny boat on the ocean in Antarctica, the size underwater was likely to be larger than a high mountain. "The collision means the recurrence of the Titanic incident."

Although the cracks on the plimsoll line of the hull were quickly welded, it was very likely that the impact would cause it to crack further. "The situation was not optimistic, so passengers on the ship began to blame each other, and they attributed the reason of being trapped to the long delay on the ice sheet." Australian tourist Janet Rice said.

On 25th, the "Xue Long" received the MAY DAY signal from the "Akademik Shokalskiy", and the emergency headquarter of the China Polar Research Center was mobilized as soon as possible. The latest and fastest comprehensive information was continuously sent from Beijing. The ice chart from the research center showed that the maximum thickness of the ice floes on the way of the "Xue Long"was 3-4 meters, and were flowing at high speed. The water channel opened by breaking the iceoften closed quickly.

Xu Ting, the deputy team leader of the "Xue Long", introduced that to ensure safety, the positions on board were arranged for double duty, and many people stayed up all night.

“To ensure safety and strengthen contacts, the three rescue ships on the way and the Australian Search and Rescue Centre would exchange information with each other every 6 hours.” John Yang, director of the Australian Maritime Safety Agency, told Southern Weekly.

After escape, Captain Kiselev, Janet Rice and others recalled this adventure with Southern Weekly, they all mentioned that December 26 was the scariest day for people trapped on the "Akademik Shokalskiy". On this day, the blizzard in the forecast hit, the video on the "Akademik Shokalskiy" showed that the range of visibility was almost 0, and the wind was as high as 11-12.

The coming snowstorm again made the atmosphere on board tense. Even with sufficient material reserves, people couldn't help but worry about the worst situation.

"We had to chat with each other without break so that everyone had no time to think too much." Chris Turney, the team leader of the expedition, told Southern Weekly. But when returning to the room alone, Turner couldn't help but recall the deeds of Antarctic explorers in distress. "I started to imagine the situation Shackleton faced."

What Chris Turney talking about was the distress story of British explorer Ernest Shackleton 100 years ago in 1914. One hundred years ago, "Fortitude" leaded by Shackleton was destroyed by floating ice 11 months after being trapped in ice at the Weddell Sea, the other end of the Antarctic continent where the Akademik Shokalskiy was trapped, almost as close to the Antarctic continent asAkademik Shokalskiy.

At the end of December the Antarctica was at the polar day, but because of the snowstorm, the sea area whereAkademik Shokalskiy located was at the polar night. In such a "polar night", "Akademik Shokalskiy"could only hear the roaring wind and the blasting ice floes.

At 16:00 on December 27, Beijing time, the "Xue Long" arrived in the sea area less than 10 nautical miles from the ship in distress. High-powered telescopes have seen the "Akademik Shokalskiy". Later that day, the French "Astrolabe" also arrived in the rescue area.

“We want to go home”

Those vessels watched each other in Antarctica area and spent their anxious and frustrated New Year's Day of 2014 in the storm.

When the Chinesenational flag appeared in the high-powered telescope of Akademik Shokalskiy, everyone on the ship in distress began to cheer. They even spontaneously formed a small celebration party. Tourists began to sing songs of their own country to release tension and depression these days. Soon, the bright red Chinese helicopter came, circled around the "Akademik Shokalskiy", and then flew back.

Zhang Jiansong recorded the details of the "Xue Long" arriving at the rescue area in his diary on December 27. They saw the "Akademik Shokalskiy" in the telescope. Hard and large pieces of ice floe covered the sea, so that they could not see any clear water, and there were thick snow on the ice floes.

But the rescue was not smooth. The first rescue plan of "Xue Long" was to break the ice, get close to the "Akademik Shokalskiy", and then take the ship sail through the floating ice to escape. However, the trapped sea area of "Akademik Shokalskiy"was close to the East Antarctic ice sheet, the climate change was erratic, the ice layer was thick and was prone to accumulate floating ice. The wind speed in this sea area was extremely fast due to the influence of the downwind of the Antarctic ice sheet. The average annual wind speed is 70 kilometers per hour, and the record of the maximum wind force on the earth at 100 meters per second is also kept by the sea area, which all made the rescue operation extremely difficult.

On December 28, the blizzard continued, and the "Snow Eagle 12" helicopter on the "Xue Long" could not take off. The rescue operation began at 9 am on the 28th. In 8 hours, the "Xue Long" could only move forwards throug breaking ice to approach the Russian ship at a speed of 1.5 knots.

By 15:00 on the 28th, the "Xue Long" advanced to 6.5 nautical miles from the "Akademik Shokalskiy". "Xue Long" was completely blocked under the frigid weather. At this time, according to theice monitor, the thickness of the ice layer was at least 3-4 meters, far beyond the ice-breaking capacity of "Xue Long". Dr. Liu Mengtan of the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences on the "Xue Long" told Southern Weekly that heavy ice floes were constantly moving under the sea ice influenced by the rapid currents and strong winds, and then snow and albino weather appeared. To avoid being trapped, the "Xue Long" turned around and returned to the clear water area.

December 28 was a long day for people on the "Akademik Shokalskiy". Chris Turney told Southern Weekly that when the "Xue Long" broke through the ice, everyone was incredible to see it appear on the horizon and tried to approach, "we were very grateful."

"This day we started with hope but ended with disappointment." Australian tourist Brandon said. The Guardian producer Lawrence Loppham said sadly to the camera in the room: "For the first time, I felt like I was going to lose my mind, and I really wanted to go home."

But bad news came one after another. A main engine of the French "Astrolabe" that arrived almost at the same time as the "Xue Long" malfunctioned upon arrival, announcing the failure of ice breaking. It had to stay in the clear water area on the edge of the ice floes. One day later, the "Astrolabe" with damaged engines and insufficient material reserves told the "Akademik" and "Xue Long" on the satellite phone that it had to give up rescuing and had to return. "We felt sorry, and wish everyone on board good luck."

The only good news was that the icebergs that threatened the ship presented a 5 ° incline in the snowstorm and gradually moved away.

On December 29, strong southeast wind hit with blizzard, and rescue work was forced to be postponed. Perhaps the existence of the "Xue Long"was the greatest comfort for the people on the "Akademik". "We were greatly encouraged to see " Xue Long"." Captain Igor said.

On the evening of December 29, Australia's "Australis", which had better ice-breaking capability than the "Xue Long", arrived, and began ice-breaking operations in the early hours of December 30, trying to enter the ice floes where Russian ship was trapped. However, when the "Australis"sailed to 11 nautical miles from the trapped ship, it was blocked by floating ice and had to retreat to the edge of the clear water area to stand by. "It's like smashing the car into a brick wall." Captain Doyle said.

The second rescue also failed.

The uncertainty of the trapped time still made the tension further exacerbated. "I started to think of the sunken" Fortitude "," Chris Turney said.

The polar journey of Douglas Mwuson, who pioneered the route of the "Akademik" 100 years ago, was also not smooth. During his three-year expedition in Antarctica from 1911 to 1914, two of the three team members died and Mwusonhimself was trapped for nearly a year before being rescued. Chris Turney also wrote a book called "1912:The Year the World Discovered Antarctica", which detailedthe"pole competition" that made the Antarctic world-famous held in 1912. It was during that pole competition that British explorer Scott and two teammates died in Antarctica due to bad weather and insufficient supplies.

Scott, Mwuson, Shackleton ... Glaciers and oceans were named after these passing heroes. Now they are like tombstones, watching the four ships on the ice sheet.

The rescue of the "Akademik Shokalskiy" lasted 4 days in the way of ice breaking. These ships watched each other in Antarctica and spent their anxious and frustrated New Year's Day in the storm in 2014.

According to the Australian Maritime Safety Agency, the wind speed of the trapped area where "Akademik Shokalskiy"stayed has reached 30 knots (about 56 kilometers per hour) with heavy snows on December 30. At the same time the ice floes became thicker."It turned out that the Akademik was asking for help to break ice, but we couldn't do it, so we suggested to transfer the passengers on the Akademik." John Yang told Southern Weekly.

New Year，New Day

"We have completed an incredible rescue operation."

On December 31, the captain of the "Akademik" sent a letter to "Xue Long" requesting helicopter rescue. At the same time, the Australian Search and Rescue Center also proposed to use helicopter to transfer personnel.

According to Qu Tanzhou, the captain of the "Xue Long" Wang Jianzhong took the helicopter and discovered that the ice on the starboard of the "Akademik"were solidenough to be considered as the emergency rescue site for helicopters.

On the same day, the "Xue Long" launched the preparatory work for rescue. Liu Mengtan told Southern Weekly that the expedition team members actively participated in carrying relief supplies, assisting the helicopters to take off and land, refueling the helicopter, exploring ice, and interpreting.

The "Snow Eagle 12" helicopter on the "Xue Long" just came back the day before the departure. The "Snow Eagle 12" helicopter is a Russian-made Ka-32 helicopter with a maximum passenger capacity of 14 and a maximum load of 3.7 tons in the cabin. It has strong wind resistance.

However, there’s also a great risk in helicopter rescue. The erratic weather, whether the ice floe has sufficientcarrying capacity, and whether the rotor wing blowing snow would affect the sight of helicopter, all threatened the safety of the helicopter. In addition, Qu Tanzhou told Southern Weekly that the main function of the "Snow Eagle 12" was to hoisting transportation, and there was no professional rescue equipment. The last polar expedition helicopter "Snow Eagle 11" crashed over the Antarctic sea ice area on December 9, 2011.

There’s no time to waste because a larger snowstorm may come again at any time. In order to ensure the safety of the helicopter landing site, the "Xue Long" notified the "Akademik" to level the site on the starboard side of the vessel and compact the snow for landing.

On New Year's Day, the passengers on the "Akademik" finally saw the hope of rescue. Chris Turney and 51 other passengers came to the ice floes on starboardand sang songs hand in hand, stepping on the snow. That night, they pitched tents on the ice and sang songs which were composed by themselves according to the trapped experiences to celebrate New Year:

We are Australian Antarctic expedition team. We traveled thousands of miles to do scientific research here. There are many snow, ice and penguins. Food and partners are all pretty good. Unfortunately, we are still stuck here. The Chinese flew here but they flew around and left. Australians came from the sea, but the ice layerwas too thick to get close.

"It's mainly because everyone is relaxed and everyone is very positive," Turney told Southern Weekly.

On January 2, 2014, the sky cleared up. 52 passengers trapped on the "Akademik" all gathered on the starboard deck waiting for the arrival of the helicopter. Brandon remembered that the "Snow Eagle 12" first brought a group of staff to build a temporary helicopter platform with wooden boards. Zhang Jiansongsaw that the left wheel of the helicopter sank into the groundas soon as it landed, so the pilot quickly lifted the helicopter to maintain balance and hovered over the ice. When the plane landed, cheers came from the side of "Akademik".

At 15 o'clock, the first helicopter undertaking rescue missions began to land. According to Brandon, 52 people decided the boarding sequence based on the cabin number. "The subsequent evacuation was rapid and orderly." After boarding, Turney looked down and saw the boundlessness sea ice, and there were three scientific research ships staying there like lonely island. "I suddenly realized that I was involved in such a big event."

The bright red helicopter flew over "Xue Long" and sent the passengers to the ice floes next to the "Australis" , then the rescue boat transported the passengers to the "Australis".

One interesting sidelight was that after returning back, Australian tourists on the "Akademik Shokalskiy" began to complain with each other online, all of them accused that the reason of being trapped too long in Antarctica was because they spent too much time on visiting. They even complained about the team leader Turney, "they spent too much time staying there, and it’s none of captain’s business."

At around 20:30, after six times of transportation, they successfully completed the rescue. Zhang Jiansong wrote in the diary: In the VHF of "Xue Long" , successive gratitude were received fromAkademik Shokalskiy" and the "Australis". Both of them said that "Thanks to Xue Long, we have completed an incredible rescue mission. "

Magical Passage

Captain Wang Jianzhong rushed into the room and burst into tears.

But at that night, "Xue Long" was also trapped in the ice floes, and larger icebergs were drifting towards it.

On the evening of January 2nd, the situation where the "Xue Long"was located suddenly changed. “Xue Long” was trapped by ice floes with a thickness of three or four meters under the east and southeast winds. And the iceberg 1 km awaywas approaching.

Due to the influence of the continuous and strong southeast wind, the sea ice in the sea area where "Xue Long"was located were constantly accumulating. The ship was surrounded by ten percent of dense sea ice, which made it very difficult to break the ice.

This was not the first time the "Xue Long" has been trapped in ice. In December 2008, the 25th Antarctic expedition, "Xue Long" was trapped in the ice zone for more than 20 days because it was difficult to break ice. In the 26th Antarctic expedition, "Xue Long" planned to sail from Casey Station to Zhongshan Station but it was also trapped by sea ice.

Although trapped in ice, the material reserves on "Xue Long"were enough to support until April. Liu Mengtan told Southern Weekly that during that period, "Xue Long" held a New Year's Day party, including singing, sketch, three sentences and a half(a kind of Chinese folk art forms), games, etc. Then the team organized a table tennis competition. According to Xu Ting, the deputy team leader of "Xue Long", although the food on board was sufficient, the fresh water reserve could only support for one month. They have called on everyone to save fresh water and list water saving plans.

The emergency headquarters in Beijing were more nervous.

According to satellite remote sensing data in the early morning of the 5th, there were two icebergs around "Xue Long", the larger one was 900 meters by 500 meters, which was drifting from 2.9 kilometers northeast away to 5 kilometers northward. On January 5, the closest distance between "Xue Long"and the clear water area on the east side was about 14.8 kilometers. Due to the influence of wind direction and ocean currents, the distance was reduced by 3.2 kilometers from the previous day.

On the same day, the weather forecasts of China, the United States, and Russia all believed that from the early morning of the 7th to the noon of the 8th, the sea area where "Xue Long"stayed would be affected by the cyclone with westerly wind, which made it conducive to blowing off the ice floes in order to get rid of being trapped. After turning to the southeast wind on the 9th, sea ice would accelerate to accumulate. The window period of getting rid of trouble was only on 7^th and 8^th.

The biggest difficulty for the ship to break through was a small iceberg in the dense floating ice in the direction of the bow. Its position has not been changed for many days.

Cheng Xiao, professor of the Institute of Global Change and Earth System Science of Beijing Normal University, who participated in making plans at the emergency headquarter, introduced that during their discussion the direction for"Xue Long" to breakthroughincluded East, Northeast, Southeast and North. The meeting had a heated discussion on the final determination of from whichthe direction to break through.

At 23:00 on January 6, the wind direction of the sea area turned to westerly wind, which reached 5.3 meters per second by early morning. At the same time, the ice floes began to move eastward quickly. At 4:45 on the 7th, the ice floes began to move and melt, the emergency headquarter decided to break through to the southeast, and "Xue Long" began to turn to the right of the bow. However, on the sea area where ice floes were scattered, "Xue Long"could do nothing but repeatedly headed back, trying to avoid the iceberg and turned to the right side of the bow.

Bai Xiangen, Chinese first female shipdriver who sailed across the Arctic Ocean, told Southern Weekly that if she was trapped by sea ice, the common way of getting rid of was to head back and let the ship vibrate itself.

At 17 o’clock on January 7, westerly winds began to decrease gradually and visibility became poorer, but the ice floes remained unchanged. No one spoke on the bridge, except the captain of the "Xue Long" Wang Jianzhong commanded the ship to continuously break ice and move towards the right.

According to Zhang Jiansong, at that time on one side of the bridge, midnight snack such as preserved egg porridge, red dates and dried longan has already been ready in the kitchen, and everyone was waiting for a sleepless night of ice-breaking.

At about 17:20, "Xue Long"has just turned to about 100 degrees. Under the impact of the ice-breaking force, a large ice floe lying in front suddenly cracked. A clear water channel appeared in front of the ship, winding forward like a lightning.

Half an hour later, "Xue Long" crossed the water channel and sailed into the clear water area. It successfully broke through.

Liu Mengtan told Southern Weekly that the tense atmosphere on the ship was also swept away at that moment. Then the bar was open, and people on the bridge shouted "let’s start Karaoke".But the captain Wang Jianzhong rushed back to the room and cried.

The "Akademik Shokalskiy" also got rid of the siege on the same day, and sailed into the clear water area together with "Xue Long".

100 years ago, Scott said to his wife in his last letter before he died in Antarctica: "What can I tell you about everything in this expedition? It's much better than sitting comfortably at home!"

On January 8, 2014, the "Xue Long" sailed towards the east side of the Ross Sea. They were going to sail on the sea area where Douglas Mwuson, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton had been to. In front of themwould be the stars and sea at the end of the world.