Emergency teams in Russia have rescued hundreds of fishermen who were left stranded after a huge piece of floating ice they were standing on broke away from an island in eastern Siberia, Euronews reports.
Pictures from the scene on Sakhalin island on Wednesday show some of the 536 fishermen standing at the waters’ edge, while others try to use smaller pieces of ice as a raft to travel back.
It eventually took seven hours to rescue the fishermen from the ice – known as an ice floe – as it continued to drift further away.
Some of the fishermen said it had drifted around 200 metres from island by the time they were rescued.
The operation on Wednesday was the third of its kind in a week at on Sakhalin. It follows an incident on January 22 when 300 people were left stranded, and another on Sunday, involving 600 people.
According to local authorities, the repeated incidents are due to fishermen ignoring safety warnings and continuing to ice fish in the area.