A Canadian cargo ship with 17 people on board remains in ice on Lake Erie near Buffalo, New York, according to Omar Faba of the U.S. Coast Guard. It has been frozen in the water since Wednesday.
Efforts to free him made “progress” on Thursday, Faba said. However, work was halted in the evening, he told CBC News. He said the plan was to return to work Friday and hopefully get him released.
The 202-metre Manitoulin had dropped off a load of wheat and was heading toward Sarnia, Ontario, when it became stuck in ice that was rapidly forming in subzero temperatures off the Buffalo shore.
And there it remains, creating a striking view of the lake, surrounded on all sides by ice and snow.
“We just haven’t had a bad winter in a while. So now that we’ve had one and people haven’t seen it in a while, they’re like ‘what’s going on? ?'” said Paul Angelillo, a search and rescue specialist with the Coast Guard in Buffalo.
Great Lakes freighters are generally able to navigate surface ice in winter, but sometimes encounter ice that is too hard or thick to pass through, he said.
The Manitoulin was not damaged and the captain and crew were safe, the Coast Guard said.
