Zhongshan Station (Antarctica)


Zhongshan Station is the second Chinese research station in Antarctica and was opened on February 26, 1989.

Overview

Zhongshan Station is named after Sun Yat-sen, who served as the provisional first president of the Republic of China in 1912. It is managed by the Polar Research Institute of China. It is located in the Larsemann Hills by Prydz Bay in East Antarctica, and is near the Russian Progress II Station and the Romanian Law-Racoviţă Station.
The station can accommodate 60 summering personnel and 25 wintering personnel. It is a base for research on marine, glaciological, geological, and atmospheric sciences and for expeditions inland, such as to the Kunlun Station at Dome A. It is supplied by annual visits of the support vessel Xue Long.

History

Four years after establishing the Great Wall Station, China's first research base in Antarctica, Guo Kun led another expedition to Antarctica, with the mission to establish a second base. The team set out from Qingdao in November 1988 on the ship Jidi. After reaching Prydz Bay in Antarctica, the ship encountered a major icefall in the night of 14 January 1989. She missed being directly hit by ice by just two or three meters, and became trapped by icebergs for seven days. Many team members wrote their wills and were ready to die. Luckily, the icebergs shifted on the seventh day and temporarily created a 30-meter-wide opening, and the team seized the opportunity to escape from the trap. The opening lasted for just two hours before being closed again. The team proceeded to construct the Zhongshan Station at Prydz Bay in only 28 days, and it was opened on 26 February 1989.
In January 2010, the station was visited by a delegation that included Xu Shaoshi, China's Minister for Land and Resources and Qu Tanzhou, director of the Chinese Arctic and Antarctic Administration.