A Canadian cargo ship with 17 people on board remains stranded on Lake Erie near Buffalo, NY
A Canadian cargo ship with 17 people on board remains in the ice on Lake Erie near Buffalo, NY, according to Omar Faba with the US Coast Guard. It has been frozen in the water since Wednesday.
Efforts to break him down “progressed,” Faba said Thursday. However, work was off in the evening, he told CBC News. He said the plan is to resume work on Friday and hopefully they will release him.
The 202-metre Manitoulin had unloaded a load of wheat and was heading back to Sarnia, Ont., when it became stuck in ice that formed quickly in sub-zero temperatures off the Buffalo coast.
And there it remains, creating a striking scene on the lake, surrounded on all sides by ice and snow.
“We just haven’t had a bad winter in a long time. So now that we’ve had one and people haven’t seen it, they’re like, ‘What’s going on?’ ” said Paul Angelillo, a Search and Rescue Specialist with the Coast Guard in Buffalo.
The Great Lakes are usually able to navigate surface ice in the winter, but occasionally encounter ice that is too hard or dense to break through, he said.
The Manitoulin was not damaged and the captain and crew were safe, the Coast Guard said.
