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United StatesTwo hundred fishermen rescued from drifting ice
In the height of ice fishing season, 200 people were stuck on a slab in the middle of Upper Red Lake. The emergency services had to lay a bridge at the place closest to the mainland.
It was around 11:30 a.m. on Monday on Upper Red Lake in the US state of Minnesota, near the border with Canada, when emergency services received a call that about 100 people had noticed the license plate. the ice on which they stood to fish was no longer directly connected to the shores of the lake.
Arrived on the spot, the emergency services “discovered a large plate separated from the rest by about twenty meters of water, blocking the fishermen”, notes the local police, whose images show an icy landscape as far as the eye can see, the most distant being invisible.
Some didn’t notice
Using drones in particular, the rescue services spotted a narrower crossing point, like an isthmus, on which they were able to place a makeshift pontoon to bring the fishermen to safety. Worried that some, isolated on the ice, are not aware of the situation, the authorities have even triggered an alert system via mobile phones. In the end, “about 200 people were evacuated,” notes Beltrami County police.
Minnesota, a northern state in the Midwest dotted with bodies of water, is nicknamed “the land of ten thousand lakes”. Fishing through the ice is a popular practice here in the winter.
(AFP)