Italian authorities have recovered five bodies from a superyacht after it sunk off the coast of Sicily on Monday during a storm.
Italy’s fire and rescue service says two people are still missing.
The recovered bodies are yet to be formally identified.
British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter Hannah are among the seven people who did not return to shore.
Background
Italy has experienced high heat and thunderstorms in recent days.
Earlier this week, the Italian Department of Civil Protection issued a warning for “scattered thunderstorms” and a “yellow alert” for 15 regions, including Sicily.
The BBC reports the yacht was caught in a waterspout which caused it to sink. A waterspout is like sea tornado, where a whirl of water mist connects clouds to the sea.
Survivors
22 crew members and passengers were on board the yacht when it sank. 15 people survived on an inflated lifeboat.
Survivors included a one-year-old baby and her mother, who told local media her “arms [were] stretched upwards to keep [my baby] from drowning.”
They were rescued by Karsten Borner, the captain of a nearby boat. Borner told the BBC that he saw a “red flare” before he found a lifeboat “drifting with 15 people inside”.
Superyacht rescue efforts in Sicily
International newswire Reuters reports the superyacht has sunk to a depth of 50 metres off the coast of Sicily, and remaining bodies are stuck in cabins.
Divers have been able to stay in the vessel for around 10 minutes at a time.
Italy’s fire and rescue service said in a post to X that “the entrance to the yacht is complex” and that cave experts are examining the shipwreck.
A remotely-operated vehicle was also sent to the seabed to capture vision of the yacht.
Mike Lynch
Media reports suggest passengers on the yacht were celebrating Lynch being recently cleared of fraud charges.
Lynch founded tech company Autonomy, which he sold to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011 for over $US11 billion ($AU16 billion).
Lawyers for HP alleged he inflated Autonomy’s value before the sale, making it seem like a better deal than it was.
Lynch was found guilty of fraud in a UK civil case in 2022 over the same matter.
Ongoing search
Italy’s fire and rescue services said rescue efforts to locate two others were ongoing.
One body has been located in the shipwreck near Sicily but rescuers have not yet been able to recover the remains. Another person who was onboard the superyacht when it sank remains unaccounted for.
The UK’s Ambassador to Italy told the BBC the incident was a “terrible tragedy”.
