ROME: At least 82 asylum-seekers drowned and 150 were rescued after a boat carrying some 500 people caught fire and capsized near an Italian island on Thursday, officials and media reports said.
The Italian news agency Ansa quoted the local mayor of Lampedusa, Giusi Nicolini, as saying 82 bodies had been recovered by emergency workers, including those of two children and several women.
“The survivors are in a state of shock. They have been in the water since the early hours of the morning,” Nicolini told news channel SkyTG24, as emergency workers raced to rescue more survivors.
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta called the incident “an immense tragedy” in a tweet. Shaken survivors wrapped in thermal blankets — many of them bare-chested — were seen arriving on the dock in images shown on television, as an emergency worker broke down in tears. Officials said the bodies were being taken to an airport hangar because of the large numbers.
The asylum-seekers said they were from Eritrea and Somalia and local police were quoted as saying they believed the boat had left from Libyan shores.
Prosecutors have opened an inquiry for multiple murder, as well as favouring illegal immigration.
Nicolini said the migrants had told her they lit a small fire on their boat around half a mile from the shore to attract the attention of coast guards after their vessel suffered engine failure.
The fire then spread, sowing panic on board which caused the boat to flip over, she said.
Lampedusa is an Italian island lying between Tunisia and Sicily and is a major entryway for asylum-seekers into the European Union, with thousands arriving every year. (Agencies)
