Passengers escape unhurt from Antarctic ship

By Cesar Illiano

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - More than 150 passengers and crew escaped unhurt after their cruise ship hit ice in the Antarctic and started sinking on Friday, the ship's owner and coast guard officials said.

A Norwegian passenger boat in the area safely picked up all the occupants of the Explorer from the lifeboats they used to flee the ship when it ran into problems off King George Island in Antarctica at 12:24 a.m. EST, the Explorer's owners said.

A spokesman for G.A.P Adventures, the Canadian travel company that owns the vessel, said 154 passengers and crew had been on board the ship. He had told Reuters earlier the number was 100.

"We were passing through ice as usual ... we do that every day ... But this time something hit the hold and we got a little leakage downstairs," the Explorer's first officer Peter Svensson told Reuters Television by satellite phone from the Norwegian ship, the Nordnorge.

He said the rescue had gone smoothly. "No one was hysterical, they were just sitting there nice and quiet, because we knew there were ships coming."

The passengers and crew were being taken to Chile's Eduardo Frei base in the Antarctic from where they would later be flown to Punta Arenas in southern Chile, a Chilean navy commander told local television.

ICY CONTINENT

The stricken vessel had set sail from the southern Argentine port of Ushuaia last week and was heading south toward the barren, icy continent, officials said.