American vessel the Polar Star, the US Coast Guard's only active heavy polar icebreaker, is heading to the Antarctic to rescue over 120 crewmembers aboard Russian and Chinese ships trapped in heavy sea ice.

According to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's Rescue Coordination Centre (AMSA), it should take the Polar Star about seven days to reach Commonwealth Bay, depending on weather conditions. 

The 122-meter US icebreaker canceled its planned stop in Sydney after it received a request Friday from Australia, Russia and China to help the Russian and Chinese ships, who fear they may be unable to free themselves from the ice. 

According to an AMSA spokeswoman, the US ship has greater icebreaking capacity than the Russian and Chinese vessels. 

"It can break ice over six meters thick, while those vessels can break 1-meter ice," she told Australian Associated Press on Sunday. 

"The idea is to break them out, but they will make a decision once they arrive on scene on the best way to do this." 

The 22 crewmembers aboard the Akademik Shokalsky and the 101 crew aboard the Xue Long (Snow Dragon), which had earlier rescued the Russian ship’s passengers with the help of a helicopter, are currently said to be in no immediate danger, and have plenty of supplies. According to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, which has reporters on board the Xue Long, the vessel is currently surrounded by ice of up to four meters thick and is 21 kilometers from open sea.

The Russian research ship Akademik Shokalsky, with 74 scientists, tourists and crewmembers on board, got stuck in a blizzard of up to 70-kilometers-per-hour winds hemmed the sea ice in around, and has been trapped in Antarctic ice since Christmas Eve. The ship has been on a privately-funded research expedition to Antarctica to retrace the footsteps of an Australian geologist who explored the Antarctic a century ago; the voyage was to visit Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic huts, which previously couldn’t be accessed because of an iceberg. 

Three icebreakers – Australian, Chinese and French – have so far been unsuccessfully trying to reach the Russian ship since December 25. 

FULL STORY: http://rt.com/news/rescue-icebreakers-antarctic-us-195/