The Canadian Coast Guard is still working to evacuate hundreds of crew members from as many as 100 ships trapped in a massive expanse of ice off the northeast coast of Newfoundland.

Brian Penney, a superintendent with the coast guard in the region, said Thursday that about 20 crew members from a handful of ships had been evacuated amid dwindling fuel and supplies -- but the majority of the crew was still with their ships.

The coast guard estimated that between 400 and 500 people were stranded in as many as 100 vessels.

"It's a dangerous situation,'' Eldred Burden, 48-year-old skipper who is trapped aboard his 18-metre vessel, told the Canadian Press via telephone.

"There's not one thing you can do ... We're getting dragged out pretty good. You're up all night and the boat is heaving and twisting.''

Supplies and fuel were running low for many of the ships -- most of them longliner fishing vessels waylaid off the coast of northeast Newfoundland and southern Labrador, while on their way home from last week's seal hunt.

Even a Coast Guard ice breaker, the Sir Wilfred Grenfell -- dispatched to help free the stranded ships -- found itself stuck in the ice Wednesday as the massive sheets closed in around it.

Erika Pittman, a communications officer with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which oversees the coast guard, told CTV.ca the Grenfell had been freed Thursday, but another icebreaker, the Ann Harvey, was now stuck.

"It's just such heavy ice that even ice breakers are having trouble," Pittman said from St. John's.

In total three icebreakers were working -- albeit slowly -- to free the stranded ships, three helicopters were delivering supplies, and another three Cormorant search and rescue helicopters were on standby.

Pittman said some of the ships had been stuck in the ice for as long as eight days, and it appeared that conditions wouldn't improve until at least next week.

She said ice conditions -- said to be the worst in 15 years -- are still "awful."

Making things difficult for ice breakers are the weather conditions which remain severe, Penney told NTV News.

"It's very difficult to get our ice breakers through. With the northeast wind we have fog, we have drizzle, freezing drizzle," he said.

Coast guard helicopters have been flying food and water to some of the trapped ships, and will continue doing so until the sealers are able to leave the area, Pittman said.

Officials are concerned once the ice melts conditions may become even more treacherous, especially for sailors who refuse to abandon their vessels.

"They get in trouble and they stay until the last minute. We've seen it over the years and we've lost crew members from some of those ships from similar instances. Had they abandoned the ships earlier, we would have saved more of the crew," Penney said.

As many as a dozen of the ships are "extensively damaged" and some could even begin to take on water as the ice pressure subsides and they begin to slip back into the water.

"Usually you try to stay with the ship because you think the safety is with the ship because the ship is big, but sometimes it is too late. In this case, we're hoping that as it changes and the breakers and helicopters are there and we can get them all out," Penney said.

Penney said the coast guard was working night and day, both on land and at sea to deal with the situation.

Provincial ferry services have also been disrupted due to the pack ice causing reduced schedules. Some of the small islands and outlets in the area have helicopters on standby to shuttle residents.

"Captains and our crews on our ice breakers, same as the staff in the centre, are working around the clock, 24 hours a day, and we've been at it now for almost two weeks, and these are very difficult conditions for this year," Penney told NTV.

The coast guard said it doesn't know when the winds will change and help push the ice back out to sea -- but it's expected to be at least until the weekend before the ice releases its destructive grip.

With files from NTV and The Canadian Press