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On Sunday emergency crews evacuated nine of the 14 sailors on board the four ships which got trapped in ice in the Sea of Okhotsk on January 18.

The four ships – a survey cutter, a fishing seiner and two barges attached to the vessels– had been heading for winter anchorage at the settlement of Adzhan, Khabarovsk region, but became stuck in the ice, a press statement from Far Eastern Department for Emergency Situations reported.

The vessels were found 100 kilometers off the region’s coast the next day by an AN-74 aircraft dispatched by the regional Department for Emergency Situations, after a distress signal was received from a radio buoy.

The rescued people were taken by Mi-8 helicopter to the town of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur. Their conditions are reported as normal.

Five sailors who will remain on board the ships are to control the drifting vessels until they reach the ice-free water, news reports said. Food supplies and fuel have been delivered on board the ships by emergency helicopters.

Meanwhile, another fishing vessel sent a distress signal on Sunday while drifting in the Sea of Okhotsk, news reports said. The trawler Ostrov Simushir, with a crew of 29 on board, had to stop the engines after it got snagged on its own fishing nets. Currently, the crew is expecting rescuers to help the ship out of the net snare, Sakhalin’s fleet monitoring service reported.