By Song Lifeng, He Jia and Liu Jinying

BEIJING, Jan. 29-- The PLA Navy sent the icebreaker Haibing (Sea Ice, Hull 722) to the Bohai Sea and the northern waters of the Yellow Sea to perform the 84th ice survey mission on January 25.

Due to the cold front, the ice conditions in the Bohai Sea and the northern part of the Yellow Sea are deteriorating. As a result, maritime shipping, aquaculture and offshore oil and gas development have all been greatly affected.

In order to obtain real-time data on maritime ice conditions and support the winter ice-breaking and disaster relief work, the PLA Navy’s icebreaker will conduct survey in 28 points in the waters of the Bohai Sea and the northern part of the Yellow Sea, with a total voyage exceeding 1,000 nautical miles for more than 100 hours.

Besides obtaining hydrological and meteorological data, the icebreaker will also carry out navigation training in complex sea conditions and sea area transferring training.

It is learned that Haibing (Hull 722), the first ship of the domestically-built Type 272 icebreakers of the PLA Navy, started its military service in 2015, and mainly takes on the tasks of ice condition investigation, ice breaking and maritime search and rescue in ice zones in the waters of the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea.