British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and daughter missing after yacht sinks: Latest

A man who saw the sinking of Mike Lynch’s superyacht unfold said they must have been “surprised” by the storm that hit.

“At around 4:30 in the morning it was gone. A beautiful vessel where there had been a party. A normal holiday day spent happily at sea turned into a tragedy,” a witness told Italian news agency ANSA.

He continued: “The vessel was not far from the port. It would have taken very little to raise the anchor and head for the port. Evidently they were surprised by the storm that suddenly hit and they were unable to avoid the sinking.”

Global warming may have contributed to the freak storm that sank a luxury British-flagged yacht off the coast of Sicily on Monday, an Italian climatologist has said.

Luca Mercalli, president of the Italian meteorological society, said the episode that led to the tragedy could have been a water spout, essentially a tornado over water, or else a downburst, a more frequent phenomenon that doesn’t involve the rotation of the air.

“We don’t know which it was because it all happened in the dark in the early hours of the morning, so we have no photographs,” he said.

In Italy, water spouts can involve winds of up to 200 kilometres (124 miles) per hour, while downbursts can produce gusts of more than 250 km per hour.Statistics show that downbursts are becoming more frequent around the country, which Mercalli said may be connected to global warming.

Storms and heavy rainfall have swept down Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat.

“The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), which is almost 3 degrees more than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms,” Mercalli said. “So we can’t say that this is all due to climate change, but we can say that it has an amplifying effect.”

A similar freak storm killed four people, when their tourist boat sank on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy in May last year.

The country’s varied geology makes it prone to floods and landslides, while the fact it is flanked by rapidly warming seas means it is vulnerable to increasingly powerful storms.

“Climate-driven catastrophes in Italy will become more frequent and more intense,” Mercalli said.

The search and rescue operation for those missing after a yacht sunk off the coast of Sicily will continue overnight, authorities said.

The director general of Sicily’s civil protection agency, Salvatore Cocina, told the BBC Cocina that the operation will carry on through the night as a specialist caving search and rescue diving team has now arrived from Rome.

They are hoping to “achieve results” during the night or by tomorrow morning at the latest.

The daughter of Mike Lynch is among those missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily, local authorities have said.

Salvatore Cocina, director general of Sicily’s civil protection agency, told the BBC that 18-year-old Hannah Lynch was confirmed to be missing with her father, along with the yacht’s chef, Ricardo Thomas.

He added the rescue operation would continue overnight.

Italian authorities have said it doesn’t “make sense” that they haven’t found more missing people despite searching all day.

A spokesperson for Sicily’s civil protection agency told the BBC that they “must be there [in the boat]”.

“We’ve been searching all day with helicopters and boats, we’ve found nothing. That wouldn’t make sense, in this conditions we should have found something by now,” Mr Venuto added.

It comes after a spokesman for Italy’s firefighting service told The Times earlier that it was unlikely more survivors would be found.

After hours of searching, the Palermo coastguard have confirmed the body recovered from the sunken yacht this morning was the ship’s cook.

They said six passengers remain missing as the coastguard continue their search and rescue operation ‘incessantly’.

Four patrol boats, a helicopters and a team of divers are involved, in the search effort. A naval and underwater team from the Palermo fire brigade have also joined the search

The yacht is about half a mile out to sea and is 50 metres underwater

The luxury yacht sunk off the coast of Palermo, Sicily.

The 56-metre long sailboat sank with 22 people on board shortly before sunrise, the Italian coast guard said in a statement.

“The wind was very strong. Bad weather was expected, but not of this magnitude,” a coast guard official in Palermo told Reuters.

Storms and heavy rainfall have swept down Italy in recent days – with floods and landslides causing major damage in the north of the country – after weeks of scorching heat.

The boat left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on 14 August and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with a navigation status of “at anchor”, according to vessel tracking app Vesselfinder.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office says it is supporting “a number of British nationals and their families” after a luxury yacht sunk off the coast of Sicily.

“We are providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Sicily, and are in contact with the local authorities,” an FCDO spokesperson said in a statement.

15 people are believed to have been rescued from a British-flagged luxury superyacht that sank in bad weather off the coast of Sicily in the early hours of the morning.

22 people are believed to have been on board, including the owner of the boat British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who is missing.

Of the 15 people, eight are believed to have been taken to hospital to treat injuries.

Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, is one of the 15 rescued.

Other survivors have been confirmed as Charlotte and James Emsley and their one-year-old daughter Sofia. They are all being treated in hospital.

“I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning,” Charlotte told local media. “It was all dark. In the water I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.”

The ship that has sunk off the coast of Sicily with British technology tycoon Mike Lynch was called the Bayesian.

It had completed a number of sailings in recent days, calling at various ports in Sicily, according to ship-tracking website VesselFinder.

The superyacht can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites, and is listed for rent for up to 195,000 euros (£166,000 ) a week.

 56-metre sailing yacht was built in 2008 by Italian company Perini Navi.

Her registered owner is listed as Revtom Ltd, which is based on the Isle of Man.