A seriously injured captain and his passengers were stranded on a stricken ship last night after a RAF rescue operation to winch them to safety by helicopter was aborted amid continuing severe weather.
The drama off the coast of Cornwall followed a day of rescue operations undertaken by land and sea as gales lashed Britain, leaving motorists stranded in blizzards and ships battered by huge waves.
After police rescued about 200 people trapped in their vehicles in whiteout conditions in the North of England, the RAF was last night forced to pull out of an attempt to retrieve the cargo ship the Horn Cliff, off the Isles of Scilly when the stormy conditions became too dangerous.
The injured skipper and 30 crew and passengers remained on the ship. The attempt to rescue the captain, who sustained spinal damage and internal injuries, is expected to continue at daybreak.
There were two other sea rescues. An RAF winchman nicknamed “Rich T” was hailed as a hero for his part in the rescue of 23 crew and passengers from a ferry in the Irish Sea, while in Scotland 14 Spanish seamen were airlifted to safety after their British-registered trawler ran aground in the remote archipelago of St Kilda.
Advertisement
Salvage crews were last night making attempts to refloat the Riverdance, a ferry operated by Seatruck Ferries, which got into trouble during a crossing from Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland to Heysham, in Lancashire, before being grounded off the coast near Blackpool late on Thursday.
The third sea operation involved the Horn Cliff, which was caught in the storm off the Isles of Scilly.
Yesterday afternoon motorists were stranded in 150 vehicles, including two coaches, on the A66 in Cumbria and Durham in freezing temperatures as up to half a metre of snow fell in just a few hours. Police managed to rescue all the motorists, including 40 pensioners and 15 schoolchildren.
Some occupants reportedly had to wait for several hours in their vehicles before they were reached by police 4x4s, local mountain rescue teams and welfare support units from the Highways Agency. Most were forced to abandon their cars and travel in police vehicles to the nearby villages of Bowes and Brough.
Julie Wilson, from the Castle Hotel in Brough, said: “We had a coach-load of pensioners who were ferried down by the police in threes and fours. They have all been in good spirits. A few of the elderly ones had to have medication, but they’ve gone off happily.”
Advertisement
The road remained closed last night.
About 6,000 homes in the North of England and 300 homes in Scotland lost power yesterday.
With the freezing weather expected to continue today, severe weather warnings were issued for the whole of Britain with the exception of the South East.