Italian specialist divers on Tuesday began a new search for six people, including British technology tycoon Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter, who have been missing since their yacht sank off the coast of Sicily, Italy.
The British-flagged yacht, named Bayesian, was anchored about 700 metres from the harbour, with 22 people, including 10 crew members on board, when it was hit by a waterspout, a kind of mini tornado, AFP reported.
The incident occurred in the early hours of this Monday.
According to Salvo Cocina, head of the Civil Protection Agency in Sicily, Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, was among the 15 people rescued, but the businessman and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were still missing.
Firefighting divers trained to work in confined spaces were flown in from Rome and Sardinia on Monday evening, but an initial search of the wreck about 50 metres below the sea surface failed.
“Access was limited to the bridge only, with difficulty due to the presence of furniture that obstructed passage,” said firefighters in X.
The 180-foot-long luxury ship was moored off Porticello, east of Palermo, when strong winds and rain suddenly hit the coast. AFP reported.
“It was terrible. The boat was hit by a very strong wind and sank shortly afterwards,” said a British survivor named Charlotte Golunski. Anonymous Agency news agency.
Golunski lost his one-year-old daughter in the waves “for two seconds” before managing to grab her “in the rough seas,” he said.
“There were a lot of people screaming” in the darkness, said Golunski, who managed to get into a lifeboat.
A watersock is a column that descends from a cloud to form a rotating mixture of wind and water over a body of water, often during severe thunderstorms.
