The World : 1,200 Saved From Ice Floes

Soviet military helicopters and ships rescued more than 1,200 fishermen who were stranded on ice floes in the frigid Gulf of Riga. The ice broke away from the Soviet Union’s Baltic coast under the impact of high winds. Tass news agency said the rescue operation ended after 1,200 people were rescued from two giant floes that together were more than two miles long and from 300 yards to nearly a mile wide. Soviet television put the number rescued at 1,500. A sea rescue official in Jurmala, Latvia, reported that no one was killed or injured. Most of those rescued, including families, had been out for a weekend of ice fishing, despite signs warning of danger.