However, the head of Sicily's civil protection agency Salvatore Cocina announced on Wednesday that the bodies recovered from the sunken boat had not yet been identified, and that one victim was still unaccounted for.
Rescuers and divers have found five bodies of people missing in the sunken cruise ship in Italy. Photo: AP
The British-flagged boat carrying 22 people sank early Monday morning after its mast, one of the tallest in the world, snapped in two during a fierce storm.
According to initial reports, 15 people were rescued, with six reported missing and one dead - confirmed to be the ship's chef Ricardo Thomas.
The six missing victims include British tech billionaire Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah Lynch; Morgan Stanley International director Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy Bloomer; and prominent American lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo.
Notably, the guests on board were all invited by Lynch - a technology billionaire once likened to the UK's Bill Gates - to celebrate his acquittal in a major US case.
More intriguingly, Lynch's alleged associate in the case, Stephen Chamberlain, died unexpectedly in a traffic accident in England just days before the boat sank.
Bayesian is a superyacht, many times the size of a London bus, 72 meters high and 56 meters long. Graphic photo: CNN
Security camera footage shows the moments before the tornado sank the 180-foot yacht. As rain poured down on the harbor, grainy footage showed the vessel being battered by the storm, rocking violently from side to side before capsizing.
Mike Lynch's wife, Angela Barcares, survived. Speaking to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica from a wheelchair in a hospital in Sicily, she said she woke up at 4am as the boat tilted. She said she and her husband were not worried at first, but became frightened when the yacht's windows shattered.
The yacht sank after a small waterspout - a type of tornado - swirled across the Mediterranean island, possibly capsizing the boat, which was anchored about half a mile off Porticello harbour.
One witness, the owner of a villa overlooking the Bayesian yacht, said he reviewed surveillance footage and saw the boat sinking. “In just 60 seconds you could see the boat disappear,” he told the Italian news agency ANSA.
Divers were able to reach the shipwreck on Tuesday. But the operation was “complicated” by numerous obstacles and narrow passageways inside the ship. In addition, divers wearing oxygen tanks had to descend about 50 meters underwater and had only 12 minutes maximum to reach the ship before having to surface.
It took rescue teams nearly two days to find the first missing victims on Wednesday morning. They are expected to resume the search early Thursday morning for the remaining victims.
Bui Huy (according to CNN, AP)
Source: https://www.congluan.vn/da-tim-thay-thi-the-thu-5-mat-tich-trong-vu-sieu-du-thuyen-bi-chim-oy-post308749.html
Comment (0)