RED LAKE, Minn. — More than 100 people who were stranded while fishing on a chunk of ice that broke loose on a Minnesota river were rescued Friday, authorities said.
The fishermen were on an ice floe in the southeastern part of Upper Red Lake in Beltrami County — about 200 miles (322 kilometers) northwest of Minneapolis — when it broke away from the shoreline. A 911 call shortly before 5 p.m. left people stranded more than 30 feet from shore, according to a statement from the Beltrami County Sheriff's Office.
No one had fallen through the ice. But before first responders arrived, bystanders tried to remove several people by canoe and four fell into the water, the sheriff's office said.
They were returned to the ice floe to warm up in a fishing shelter, the sheriff's office said.
According to the sheriff's office, it took about 2.5 hours to finally evacuate 122 people from the ice floe, and no injuries were reported.
State officials are warning people to be wary of ice that is unusually thin for this time of winter.
The stranding occurred a day after a passenger was killed when a commercial transportation vehicle crashed through the ice on Lake of the Woods, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
Tracked vehicles, locally called 'bombers', are used to transport customers to and from ice fishing locations away from the coast.
