One man is dead and six people are still missing after a luxury yacht carrying 22 passengers – including several British citizens – sank in the early hours of the morning. BBC reports
The Italian coastguard has launched a search and rescue operation using specialist divers, helicopters and patrol boats.
The yacht was struck by a powerful storm outside the harbour at Porticello near Palermo. Witnesses say the boat’s mast snapped in half and later became unbalanced.
Tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah and chef Ricardo Thomas are among those missing in the shipwreck. Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, has survived the disaster.
One of the British passengers, Charlotte Golunski, told reporters she kept her one-year-old daughter alive by holding her up in the water until they managed to get on a lifeboat.
Alongside the British citizens, the passengers are reportedly from several other countries including the US, Canada, Sri Lanka and Ireland.
Witnesses told the Italian news agency Ansa that the force of the storm caused the ship’s 72m (236ft) aluminium mast to snap in half and the boat became unbalanced.
It disappeared beneath the water at around 05:00 local time.
A local fisherman told reporters he saw a waterspout in the vicinity, a form of tornado that occurs over water rather than land and can generate powerful winds.
Salvo Cocina, head of Sicily’s civil protection agency, said of those on board the Bayesian: “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
