Passenger ferry freed from Baltic Sea ice
<p>In this photo made from TV ships are seen trapped in ice in the Baltic Sea on Thursday, March 4, 2010. Sweden's sea rescue service says four passenger ferries with more than 1,000 people on board are trapped in ice in the Baltic Sea. The Swedish Maritime Administration says that there are 1,133 passengers and crew on the four ships, which have been stuck for hours just off the Swedish coast. (AP Photo / SVT via APTN)</p>
STOCKHOLM (AP) - A passenger ferry with nearly 1,000 people on board broke free early Friday from heavy pack ice that had trapped it for hours in the Baltic Sea of Sweden's east coast, officials said.
Dozens of other ships remained stuck and awaiting assistance after gale-force winds built up large ice masses along the Swedish coastline.
Ice breakers helped release the ferry Amorella at the edge of an archipelago north of Stockholm, rescue spokesman Jonas Sundin said. Rescue helicopters and military hovercraft had been placed on standby to evacuate passengers if needed.
Sundin said no one was hurt and the ship was continuing its voyage to the Swedish capital early Friday.
The Swedish Maritime Administration said the Amorella had 753 passengers and 190 crew on board. The 10-deck ship belongs to Viking Line, which operates Baltic Sea cruises between Sweden and Finland.
The other ships stuck in the area were the roll-on-roll-off ferry Sea Wind with 32 people and the Regal Star, a cargo ship with 56 people on board. Sundin said the icebreakers would try to set them free Friday morning.
Three other ferries that got stuck in the ice were able to break free on Thursday.
One of those ships, the Finnfellow, collided lightly with the Amorella when the ice pressed the two ships together, but there was no major damage to either ship, officials said.
A total of about 50 ships were stuck in ice along Sweden's eastern seaboard, said Johny Lindvall, who manages the maritime administration's ice breaker service. Heavy ice cover is not uncommon further north, but the ice rarely gets thick enough in the Stockholm archipelago to trap powerful passenger ferries like the Amorella.
"There's no danger for the passengers as long as there's food and drink on board," Lindvall told The Associated Press.
Mats Nystrom, a passenger on the Amorella, told Swedish broadcaster SVT that there was no panic on the ship.
"The atmosphere is calm so there is no danger in that sense," said Nystrom, who is a sports presenter for the network. He said the most dramatic event had been when the two ships touched.