Initially ten people were on the ice that had broken off however five had managed to reach the riverbank on their own by the time rescuers arrived.
The five people were rescued using a rescue plank. The incident happened in Krāslava region in eastern Latvia.
In 2013 a large area of ice broke off the Baltic Sea coast near Rīga, carrying several hundred fishermen seaward. They were rescued with helicopters, boats and ships.
Such scenarios entered the popular imagination with the publication of the 1899 novel by Rūdolfs Blaumanis, titled In the Shadow of Death, that dramatizes ice fishermen struggling for life on a piece of ice that has broken off the coast.
