Stranded luxury cruise ship in Greenland with 206 people on board, pulled free again | Abroad

The luxury cruise ship was stranded on Monday in a very remote fjord in Greenland, about 1,400 km northeast of the capital Nuuk. The Danish army immediately reported that it would probably take days before help could arrive, because the nearest ships were far away.

The Sirius patrol, a special Danish military unit that was in the area, was able to board the Ocean Explorer more quickly. The cruise operator, Aurora Expeditions of Sydney, Australia, confirmed to Reuters on Tuesday that everyone on board was safe and healthy. The passengers handled the situation well.

Yesterday it emerged that three cases of Covid-19 had been identified among those on board. The sick were placed in isolation and cared for by a doctor and a medical team on board. “They are doing well,” he said.

“We have just been successfully extricated… we are extremely excited,” Gina Hill, an Australian passenger on board the ship, told Reuters yesterday. She added that the Ocean Explorer banked to the side during the operation and passengers were not allowed out. But it worked: the Greenland trawler and research vessel Tarajoq was able to pull the huge ship free this time.

The Ocean Explorer is now being taken to a port to assess the damage, its owner, SunStone Maritime Group, said. The passengers are flown home. “None of the people on board were injured, the environment was not contaminated and the hull did not rupture,” SunStone said in a statement.

Most of the passengers on board are believed to be Australian, with the rest a mix of tourists from other countries such as New Zealand, Britain, the United States and South Korea.

Greenland is located in the Arctic region, is still administratively dependent on Denmark, but is self-governing. The island has only 57,000 inhabitants and attracts tourists with its unspoilt nature. 85 percent of the country is covered by an ice sheet of up to 3 km thick.