All 52 passengers were rescued via helicopter and transported to an icebreaker from a ship that had been stuck in Antarctic ice for 10 days.
Officials had abandoned several previous rescue attempts in days earlier, due to horrid weather conditions in the region. A helicopter from a nearby Chinese icebreaker transported passengers to the Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis. The Russian-flagged MV Akademik Shokalskiy got stuck in unusually thick ice on Christmas Eve.
Although the group has not finished their journey to the Australian port Hobart, they are expected to arrive mid-January.
