(CNN) -- At the request of the Australian, Russian and Chinese governments, the U.S. Coast Guard is stepping up to help break up ice off Antarctica that has ensnared a pair of ships. The Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star had been heading to that area anyway, having left its home port of Seattle early last month to eventually break through sea ice and refuel the U.S. Antarctic Program's McMurdo Station on Ross Island. Now the icebreaker is retooling to help the Russian ship Akademik Shokalskiy and China's Xue Long due to "sufficient concern that the vessels may not be able to free themselves from the ice," the Coast Guard said Saturday in a statement.

Twenty-two Russian crew members are still on the
Akademik Shokalskiy, waiting for either the ice to shift or for outside help.