WASHINGTON: Two sick workers evacu- ated from a rem US research stationnear the South Pole on Wednesday have reached Chile after a risky rescue mission carried out in the dead of Antarctica's winter, US officials said. A Twin Otter turboprop plane flew in dark and cold conditions to pick up the workers from the Amundsen-Scott station about 250m from the geographic South Pole, spokesman for the US National Sci ence Foundation (NSF) Peter West said After a stop at a British station on the edge of Antarctica lasting several hours, another Twin Otter flew the two workers to Puntas Arenas, Chile's southernmost city, the NSF later said in a statement posted on its Facebook page. The plane landed around 9.40pm on Wednesday (8.14am Thai time yesterday). The plane's crew and a medical team had made the 10-hour journey to the South Pole from the British Antarctic Survey's Rothera research station some 2,200km away in the middle of the continent's winter on Tuesday night to reach the patients, who could not be treated on site. The NSF the US research agency that operates the Amundsen-Scott Sta- organised the rescue mission. tion - organised the rescue mission