Ice Fishing is Risky Business 

For three ice fishers on the Samara River near Dnipropetrovsk this took a tragic turn. Toward the evening, January 7, a group of ice-fishers decided to go home As it was a long trip, one of them, 33 year-old Ihor N., a driver at a local repair-and-construction office, offered a ride in his car. The fishing gear was loaded, five fishermen got in the car and drove off. The driver decided to take a short cut over the ice to the nearest road. They were thirty meters across the river when the ice under the overloaded Zhiguli gave way. The car went under and only the driver and the passenger sitting beside made it to the surface. The three in the back seat must have been unable to open the doors due to the equipment.

Lifting the car with the victims from the bottom took a rescue team of 15 and powerful machinery. The Dnipropetrovsk District Prosecutor's Office states that criminal proceedings have been opened under Article 215, Section 3 of the Criminal Code (traffic violation). Law enforcement statistics point to an increasing number of similar accidents, due to the growing number of ice fishermen, among them many jobless or with pay arrears, trying to support their families with cheap fish.