Russian Arctic researchers return home

Russian scientists rescued from an Arctic research station flew home to a hero's welcome Sunday, days after narrowly escaping death when nearly all of their station sank beneath a wall of ice.
A plane carrying the 12 researchers arrived to a waiting crowd of family, friends and colleagues in Russia's second city of Saint Petersburg shortly after 2:00 pm (1100 GMT), Russian news agencies reported.
The scientists arrived from Norway's Spitzbergen island, to which rescue helicopters had airlifted them the previous day from their North Pole-32 floating station, some 700kms away in the Nansen Basin.