Antarctic wreck survivors land in Chile

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2007

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile (AFP) — Half of the 154 people who survived the sinking of a cruise ship that hit an iceberg in the freezing waters off Antarctica arrived safely in Chile Saturday.

Seventy-seven of those rescued from the scarlet-hulled Explorer cruise liner touched down at 2220 GMT at Punta Arenas, on the Magellan strait in far southern Chile, in an air force C-130 after spending the night at a Chilean base on the Antarctic island of King George.

"I feel wonderful, very pleased to be alive," Danish tourist Jan Henkel, 42, told AFP, alongside his girlfriend Mette Larsen, 29. "Everybody was afraid to die, I think."

Larsen however was relieved enough to joke that when they wed soon, "On the honeymoon, we will go to a warmer place, I think."

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