A yacht carrying 22 people sank off the coast of Palermo in Sicily, Italy, where a tornado struck. One body has been found, and the search for six missing people is ongoing. The BBC reports a story by a British woman, Charlotte Golunski, who managed to save her one-year-old daughter. “I was screaming for help, but all I could hear around me was screaming,” she says.
On board the 56-meter elegant yacht were mainly citizens of Great Britain, as well as people from New Zealand, Sri Lankan, France, USA, Canada and Ireland.
So far, 15 people have been rescued, including Briton Charlotte Golunski, her husband and her one-year-old daughter. The BBC quotes her as saying she held her child above the sea to save her from drowning.
She said they were woken by “thunder, lightning and waves that made the yacht shake” and that it “looked like the end of the world” before they were in the water. “I lost my daughter in the sea for two seconds and then quickly hugged her in the angry waves,” the BBC quoted her as saying.
“I screamed for help, but all I heard around me were screams”
Charlotte said she was “trying as hard as I could to keep the baby afloat so she wouldn't drown.” “It was pitch black everywhere. I couldn't keep my eyes open in the water. I was screaming for help, but all I could hear around me were the screams of others,” she added.
She said 11 people managed to get out onto a lifeboat. All three — Charlotte, her husband and daughter — were taken to hospital.
“A one-year-old child was brought to our pediatric emergency department in Palermo with his mother. The child is in good condition, fortunately he was not injured. The mother had injuries that we treated. In the morning, the father, who was initially taken to the adult emergency department where his wounds were stitched, was also brought here. The whole family is now in one room in the emergency department,” said Domenico Cipolla, a hospital representative, as quoted by Reuters.
“Just a few minutes”
Karsten Borner, the captain of a nearby boat, said his crew had taken several survivors, including three seriously injured, on a life raft. Describing the moment the storm hit, he told Italian news agency RAI that the yacht tilted to one side and sank in just a few minutes. “Everything happened in a really short time,” he added. A local fisherman, Giuseppe, told Reuters he was on board a motorboat when he saw “mats and T-shirts floating in the sea.”
Main image source: PERINI NAVI PRESS OFFICE/EPA/PAP