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TV AND WEB RESTRICTIONS~**NONE*~ ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) STORY: Ukraine's emergency ministry sent helicopters to evacuate sick crew members from ships stranded in the Azov Sea on Thursday. More than 60 ships are drifting in the icy waters or are stuck fast in the ice, the emergency ministry said. The "Kapitan Chudinov" ship is currently not able to make it to the nearest port of Kerch in south-east Ukraine. A helicopter picked up a sick crew member to take him to a hospital. The "Avaks 1" ship with Russian sailors onboard was badly damaged by ice and crew members suffering from frostbite had to be evacuated. Helicopters brought evacuated crew members to Simferopol in Ukraine where ambulances took them to the town's hospitals straight from the airport runway. A fierce cold snap with temperatures of about minus 25 degrees Celsius caused large parts of the Azov Sea to freeze. With temperatures 12 to 17 degrees Celsius below average, the situation in Ukraine has became serious. More than 130 people have died due to the cold weather, and most of the winter grain has been destroyed in Ukraine's southern and eastern regions.