home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
070389
/
07038900.053
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-22
|
3KB
|
52 lines
WORLD, Page 30HIGH SEASSOS Under the Midnight SunA daring rescue saves more than 900 aboard a Soviet liner
For more than a week, the 576 passengers aboard the Soviet
cruise liner Maxim Gorky had been sailing through the North
Atlantic near Iceland, marveling at the dramatic Arctic scenery.
Just after midnight on their ninth day out -- it was foggy, yet
still light in the land of the midnight sun -- the 25,000-ton ship
struck a partly submerged ice floe. Three gashes opened in the
starboard forward hull below the waterline, one of them 18 ft.
long.
At impact there was a thundering shudder, followed by the wail
of the ship's siren. In one of the Maxim Gorky's restaurants, as
the pianist was playing The Green, Green Grass of Home, a heavy
loudspeaker crashed down on the instrument. The passengers, almost
all West German pensioners who had boarded in Bremerhaven, stumbled
on deck into freezing air.
As the ship's bow dipped ever deeper into the ice-packed sea,
members of the 377-man crew passed out blankets and vodka and
helped people into lifeboats. When launched, they were soon
surrounded by giant ice floes. "While we were sitting in the boats,
we thought this was going to be another Titanic," said Harry Delor,
72, of Dusseldorf. "Some panicked, some prayed. We thought the end
was near."
A quick and masterful rescue operation helped avert
catastrophe. Within hours, four Norwegian and two Soviet
helicopters began plucking passengers and crewmen out of the boats
and carrying them to safety aboard the Norwegian vessel Senja,
which reached the accident site after plowing through ice up to 6
ft. thick.
Eventually the passengers, many still clad in pajamas, were
taken to Spitsbergen, in Norway's polar Svalbard archipelago, and
then flown back to West Germany. Emergency teams kept the Maxim
Gorky from sinking by pumping water out of the vessel and plugging
the gashes with cement brought out to them by a Russian freighter.
How could the Maxim Gorky, which was equipped with radar and
other modern navigational aids, encounter so serious a mishap?
Norwegian experts suggested that the ship, commanded by Captain
Marat Galimov, who apparently was on his first voyage in the Arctic
seas, may have been cruising at excessive speed. When it struck the
ice, according to Senja captain Sigurd Kleiven, the Soviet ship was
steaming at about 18 knots in an area where Norwegian maritime
officials say no more than 3 to 5 knots is advisable at this time
of year. Said Bjorn Sorensen, a Lutheran parish priest on
Spitsbergen, who led a church service for some passengers
immediately after their rescue: "Nobody who prayed today can accuse
God of having neglected his prayer."