In an unfortunate series of events, a luxury cruise ship was stranded in a fjord in Greenland. This particular incident took place on September 11, Monday off the eastern coastline of the region. Many attempts were made to free the ship but none were successful. However, after many attempts, it was finally pulled to freedom. Here are all the details that you need to know about this specific incident and its progression.
Greenland: Stranded Luxury Cruise Ship Pulled Free
According to an article recently published in CNN, when the ship initially ran aground in Alpefjord, many thought that it would be stranded for around a week. However, that, thankfully, wasn’t the case. The ship was named Ocean Explorer and was carrying around 206 passengers.
It was operated by Aurora Expeditions and was owned by SunStone which is based in Florida. It was pulled free by Tarajoq which is a research vessel which is owned by the government of Greenland. The ship was involved in earlier attempts to pull it free, too, and it finally succeeded.
A larger Danish vessel, Knud Rasmussen, had also been arranged to help Ocean Explorer. However, it would have to travel a distance of around 2,222 kilometres in order to reach the marooned ship. It was estimated to arrive by Friday. Luckily, the ship was freed before that.
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No Panic Among Passengers
While the ship was waiting to be rescued, the article mentioned that there was absolutely no panic among the passengers. Everyone was cooperative. One passenger even joked that their only concern was whether they would run out of alcohol.
Yet another passenger joked that they recently took swimming lessons so they might just end up swimming back to Iceland. Danish Military boarded the ship and also confirmed that all the 206 people on board were doing fine.
Only three people on board were kept in isolation as they tested positive for COVID-19 but all other passengers were healthy, unharmed and managed to return safely.
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Have you ever been in a similar situation? Let us know in the comments below!
Cover Image Credits: Canva Images (Representational)