COPENHAGEN – A Russian icebreaker with 33 people on board on Tuesday accidentally issued a pre-dawn mayday while in a storm off the central Norway coast, prompting officials to launch a rescue operation including a helicopter and three ships.

Norway’s Joint Rescue Coordination Center said the rescue was called off after the ship managed to restart some of its engines and continue its northern journey under its own power.

A Russian official told the TASS news agency that “the distress signal was sent accidentally after a power outage” during the storm.

“There are no problems, the icebreaker is fine, and the crew is safe,” the unidentified spokesman told TASS. “The alert has been cancelled.”

The Tor icebreaker began its voyage in St. Petersburg, on the Baltic Sea, and was sailing around the Scandinavian peninsula and then north to its destination in northwestern Siberia, TASS said.

The distress call was sent when the vessel was off Aalesund, some 255 kilometres (160 miles) north of Bergen, Norway’s second largest city.