Luxury cruise ship freed after running aground in Greenland
A luxury cruise ship that ran aground in a remote part of Greenland with 206 people onboard has been pulled free by a fishing trawler.
The Ocean Explorer cruise vessel had been stuck since Monday in mud and silt in the Alpefjord national park, 870 miles (1,400km) north-east of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.
“We have just successfully become free now … we are absolutely elated,” Gina Hill, an Australian passenger onboard the ship, told Reuters on Thursday. The Ocean Explorer leaned to the side during the operation and passengers were not allowed to go outside, Hill said.
The Danish military’s joint arctic command confirmed that the ship had been pulled free by the Tarajoq, a trawler and research vessel that made a failed attempted to do so on Wednesday.
The Ocean Explorer will be taken to a port to assess any damage, while the passengers will be flown home, said SunStone Maritime Group, which owns the cruise vessel. “There have not been any injuries to any person onboard, no pollution of the environment and no breach of the hull,” SunStone said in a statement.
Three people on board the ship have Covid-19, the Sydney-based charter group Aurora Expedition, which organised the cruise, confirmed on Thursday.
The company said in a statement the three passengers were in isolation and were “doing well”. They were being looked after by an onboard doctor and medical team.
Hill, on board with her husband, earlier said they felt a shudder, then what sounded like a scrape, when the ship ran aground.
She said the passengers were in good spirits and were being entertained by lectures and stories of expeditions by the crew.
“No one seems to be afraid, and they’re giving us updates quite regularly,” Hill said earlier this week.
Hill said after the crew alerted passengers that there were confirmed cases of Covid, some passengers had chosen to wear masks in the public areas, but others had not.
Many of the passengers on board are believed to be Australian, along with a mix of tourists from other countries including New Zealand, Britain, the United States and South Korea.
Greenland, a semi-sovereign territory of Denmark in the north Atlantic with a population of just 57,000, attracts tourists with its rugged landscape and a vast ice cap that covers much of the island.