Arctic countries unprepared for cruise ship accidents: officials

As more cruise liners travel in Arctic waters, fuelled by tourists' interest in the North and made possible by shrinking sea ice, U.S. and Canadian officials are questioning their abilities, as well as those of other Arctic nations, to handle cruise ship accidents.

Speaking at last week's Canadian Arctic Summit in Edmonton, a representative from the U.S. Coast Guard said it doesn't have the resources to respond quickly to a massive rescue operation in the northern Bering Sea and the Arctic waters off Alaska.

"Some things we're looking at is: how much icebreaker time we need up there? Do we put other vessels up there? How much [is] the aircraft response time?" Capt. Michael Inman, the coast guard's chief of response in Juneau, said at the summit.

"All those things we're looking at, we're not at the end point where we know what we're going to have to put there."

Inman said seven cruise ships carrying over 3,000 passengers will be heading to the northern Bering Sea and waters off Alaska this year.

Meanwhile, Inman said, more than 70 cruise ships will travel to Greenland this year, carrying more than 150,000 passengers.

"How do we work in this region in an expanded role in the future? And what are the best ways to actually provide the services required by law?" he said. "We're still looking at that."

U.S. officials said there were 28 North Pole transits by icebreakers between 2004 and 2007, along with the largest number of ships ever in the Barents Sea.

That amount of ship and icebreaker traffic is of concern to Mary Williams, director general of the National Research Council of Canada's Institute for Ocean Technology.

Sea ice remains a hazard

At the summit, Williams said that while Arctic sea ice is shrinking, there is still plenty remaining.

That raises questions about the type of life-saving technologies used in the North — for example, how long a basic lifeboat can permit survival in ice-filled Arctic waters, she said.

"And if it can't, why are we letting all the cruise ships go up north with lifeboats on them?" Williams said.

The safety of shipping and cruise vessels in Arctic waters has been a concern for the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental body that includes Canada, the U.S. and other Arctic countries. The council is expected to release an Arctic marine shipping assessment report later this year.