Antarctic Cruise Ship Sinking

Passengers evacuated as vessel strikes iceberg
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 23, 2007 7:34 AM CST
Antarctic Cruise Ship Sinking
The passenger ship MV Explorer, in this undated file photo, is reported to be sinking following a collision in Antarctic waters Friday Nov. 23, 2007. The ship, which was formerly named Lidblad Explorer, was built in 1969 in Uusikaupunki Shipyard, Finland, purpose-built as an expeditionary vessel, designed...   (Associated Press)

Passengers and crew abandoned a cruise ship traveling in Antarctic waters after the vessel struck an iceberg and began to sink late last night. More than 150 people on board the Explorer manned lifeboats in the freezing waters near the South Shetland Islands, south of Argentina, until they were taken aboard a Norwegian cruise ship, the  MS Nord Norge, this morning, CNN reports.

The 2400-ton cruise ship, operated by Canadian tour company Gap Adventures, is designed to sail in the frigid waters. "We believed it has been hulled, it has a hole the size of a fist and some cracking in the hull of the ship, it's taking water and it's listing about 21 degrees," a Coast Guard official told the AP. Although it's currently the middle of spring in the southern hemisphere, the temperature today hovers around 23°F. (More cruise ships stories.)

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