Rescuer dies in polar capsize

SEOUL - A South Korean scientist was killed and four were rescued after a freezing swim to shore when their boat capsized in rough Antarctic waters near South Korea's polar research station.

Antarctic research teams from around the world joined the rescue effort for the five, and for another group of three South Koreans whose boats overturned in bitter weather at the weekend.

The drama began when three scientists went missing on Sunday as they were returning to South Korea's polar research base on King George Island after seeing off 24 colleagues returning to Seoul.

King George Island lies between the Antarctic peninsula and the tip of South America.

A second boat carrying five people left to search for them, but also disappeared.

The Koreans appealed for countries with bases in the same area - Uruguay, Brazil, Germany, the Czech Republic, China, Argentina and Chile - to help with the rescue.

A Chilean Air Force helicopter crew found the first three scientists on a nearby island, and transferred them to an Air Force hospital.

A Russian patrol then found the group that had set out to rescue the first team, on another island.

Four survivors had managed to swim ashore and took shelter in a hut used for temporary shelter, said an official at the Korean Ocean Research and Development Institute.

The fifth person in that group died, but it was not immediately clear how.

South Korea has stationed scientists in Antarctica since it established the research centre in 1982 to study environmental conditions.

South Korea's King Sejong Station is on the Barton Peninsula on King George Island, and scientists consider it a strategic point to study the behaviour of energy particles from space as they hit the Earth's magnetic field.

It is also well placed for studying how the land masses of the continent have evolved.

- REUTERS