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One person has died and six others are missing after a luxury superyacht was hit by a heavy storm off the coast of Sicily on Monday, authorities confirmed.
The vessel, a 56-metre British-flagged sailing ship named “Bayesian”, sank shortly before dawn off the Sicilian capital Palermo with 22 people on board, the Italian coast guard said in a statement.
Among the missing are one Canadian, two Americans and four Britons.
A teenager and a one-year-old were among those rescued and brought to shore. Eight people were taken to hospital. The boat’s passengers included 10 crew members and 12 foreign tourists.
According to Luca Cari, spokesman for the Italian fire brigade, one body was found near the wreckage.
A helicopter and rescue boats from the Coast Guard, Carabinieri, Fire Brigade and Civil Protection were all on site to search for the missing and had the wreck located at a depth of 50 meters, The Associated Press reports.
This photo is from a video released by the Italian fire brigade on Monday, showing the stretch of sea near Palermo, Sicily, in southern Italy, where the British-flagged sailing yacht Bayesian sank on Monday morning.
Visibilities of Fire via AP
According to local media, a heavy storm with heavy flooding hit the area overnight, but on Monday morning the sky was clear and the sea calm.
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“The wind was very strong. Bad weather was expected, but not of this magnitude“, a coast guard official in Palermo told Reuters.
Italy has been hit by storms and heavy rain in recent days, with flooding and landslides causing widespread damage in the north of the country after weeks of scorching heat.
The ANSA news agency reported that the yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian company Perini Navi, was moored in front of the Porticello harbour.
The captain of a nearby boat told Reuters that when the storm hit, he turned on the engine to maintain control of the vessel and avoid a collision with the Bayesian.
“We managed to keep the ship in place and when the storm passed, we noticed that the ship had disappeared behind us,” Karsten Borner told reporters.
He said his crew then found a number of survivors on a life raft, including three who were seriously injured, and took them aboard before the coast guard picked them up.
Global News has contacted Global Affairs Canada for more information about the incident.
— With files from Reuters
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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