Britons rescued from Antarctic ship

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Passengers abandoned the 2,400-tonne Liberian-flagged M/S Explorer after a small hole was punched in the hull in the early hours of Friday.

After enduring temperatures of minus 5C, the passengers and the 54-strong crew were eventually transferred uninjured to Norwegian cruise ship the NordNorge, which had gone to the rescue.

Fourteen of the Britons were clients of adventure holiday company Explore which has its headquarters at Farnborough, Hampshire.

They were taking part in Explore's Spirit of Shackleton tour of 19 nights, starting from the port of Ushuaia on the southern tip of Argentina and including the Falkland Islands and South Georgia.

Pictures of the incident showed the Explorer listing violently to one side, so the deck was almost in the water.

Passengers abandoned the vessel near a huge iceberg, in a vast expanse of freezing polar water. Passengers could be seen in red life-jackets, boarding shallow, rigid-hulled lifeboats.

Explore's managing director Ashley Toft said: "While such incidents are very rare, they are nevertheless shocking when they occur."

Arnvid Hansen, the captain of the NordNorge, operated by Norwegian cruise company Hurtigruten, said the passengers were cold but not suffering from hypothermia.

He added: "It was no problem to get them on board. They were picked up from the lifeboats...and this operation took around one hour."