More than 50 ships stuck in Baltic Sea ice: maritime authorities

Around 50 ships, including large ferries reportedly carrying thousands, were stuck in the ice in the Baltic Sea Thursdayand many were not likely to be freed for hours, Swedish maritime authorities said. "Around 50 commercial vessels are waiting for help from ice breakers (and) we have had as many as six large passenger ferries stuck, but have managed to free two of them," Johny Lindvall of the Swedish Maritime Administration's ice breaker unit told AFP.

He said that two large Viking Line ferries that regularly shuttle thousands of passengers between Sweden and Finland were among the four ferries still stuck in the ice. According to the TT news agency, the two ferries were the Isabella and the Amorella and were in total carrying 2,630 passengers.