The captain of the stricken superyacht at the centre of a large-scale rescue operation off the Italian coast has broken his silence on yesterday's disaster sinking.
The Bayesian, owned by the wife of missing British tech mogul Mike Lynch, had sunk after falling victim to a waterspout and "vicious" weather early on Monday morning, and six passengers are still yet to be found.
Italian authorities face a ticking clock to try and find survivors: Lynch himself, his 18-year-old daughter, Morgan Stanley exec Jonathan Bloomer, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo, and their two wives.
The Bayesian's chef Ricardo Thomas was found dead in the sea by divers yesterday, and any hopes that survivors will be found alive in air pockets inside the 50-metre-deep vessel are dwindling as the rescue effort rumbles on.
Medical teams, supported by the Red Cross, were seen bringing a body to shore yesterday
Reuters
The vessel's captain, named by local media as James Catfield, said those on board "didn't see it coming".
According to Italian paper La Reppublica, a grief-stricken Catfield has been hospitalised in Termini Imerese just outside Sicilian capital Palermo - with his brief comment the only words he could muster.
Divers investigating the wreck have warned the search for survivors "is a race against time", while the Palermo Fire Brigade's inspector Marco Tilotta, who leads the undersea team, compared the disaster to the notorious Costa Concordia crash in 2012.
Tilotta, speaking to the Mail, vowed: "We will do everything to recover the bodies. The weather conditions are worsening but we hope to continue operations without problems."
Salvo Cocina said bodies could be "trapped inside the vessel"
Reuters
He continued: "We plan... to search centimetre by centimetre."
While Salvatore Cocina, the head of Sicily's civil protection department which deals with emergency events in the region, said he was worried that bodies were "trapped inside the vessel".
The British Government's Marine Accident Investigation Branch said it has sent four of its inspectors to Sicily to conduct a "preliminary assessment".
While the Foreign Office said it was "in contact with the local authorities following an incident in Sicily, and stand ready to provide consular support to British nationals affected".
MORE FROM ITALY:
Rescuers have been in and out of Porto Bagnera in Porticello all day
PA
Among those Britons out in Sicily are Charlotte Golunski and James Emsley, who lost their one-year-old daughter Sofia for a couple of seconds in the "fury" of the sea on Monday morning.
But in a rare positive development in this horror story, Dr Domenico Cipolla of a children's hospital in Palermo said Sofia would soon be discharged from medical care.
Dr Cipolla said: "They spent a relatively quiet night. The child slept, and I found the parents somewhat relieved this morning. Clearly their physical sufferings are few, a few wounds, a few excoriations, so the medication is no big deal. The sorrow of knowing that they lost their fellow travellers is very big for them.
He continued: "We know that there is an embassy official who is about to arrive, that the ambassador in Palermo will visit them either here or at the hotel where they will go after they are discharged to hospital late in the morning, so let's say they are being followed for what this case deserves."
