Food Reaches Russians Stranded In Antarctica

An American icebreaker dropped off four tons of food and other supplies Thursday for Russian researchers stranded at their base in Antarctica.

The icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer tied up at the edge of pack ice just 12 miles from Russia’s Mirny base, said Vyacheslav Martyanov of the Arctic and Antarctic Institute. The base sent a caterpillar truck to haul the emergency shipment for its 36 scientists.

“They were running out of tea, coffee and most other things,” Martyanov said in a telephone interview from St. Petersburg.

Russia’s own supply ship, the Akademik Fyodorov, is already about six months late and won’t get to Mirny for at least two more weeks, Martyanov said.

The Palmer, the U.S. National Science Foundation’s primary research ship, was diverted from a research trip studying currents in the southern Indian Ocean to make the delivery.

The Akademik Fyodorov is now some 1,250 miles west of Mirny, restocking the Russian base at Molodyozhnaya, “and there was no way it could make it in time to bring the food to Mirny before the people began to starve,” Martyanov said.