Antarctica Ship Rescue Begins After Passengers On Research Ship Trapped For A Week (VIDEO)

A long-awaited rescue of passengers on board a research ship trapped in Antarctic ice for more than a week finally got under way on Thursday.

A helicopter from the Chinese icebreaker Snow Dragon was expected to fly passengers to a nearby vessel after successfully managing to land next to the ship.

A Helicopter from the nearby Chinese icebreaker Xue Long picks up the first batch of passengers from the stranded Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy