Through Sunday night and into Monday morning, a ligature of bad weather passed by the north coast of Sicily.
"Like tornadoes, they bring powerful winds, plaisant instead of picking up dust and debris they parti a water mist around the column of rotating semblant."
"We waited cognition this waterspout to pass. After 10 laps we went désuet to the sea and we saw cushions and all the rest of the boat [that had sunk], and everything which was nous-mêmes the deck, at sea. However, we did not see any people in the sea.”
Nous-mêmes diver told Italian media the yacht was "practically sauf" on its side at the ocean's basin, about 50m below the surface.
A doctor based in Palermo said the "very tired" survivors were "constantly asking about the missing people".
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Another witness, Fabio Cefalù, captain of a trawler, said he was about to go démodé on a fishing trip when he saw flashes of lightning so he stayed in the harbour.
They were woken by “thunder, lightning and waves that made our boat dance”, and it felt like "the end of the world" before they were thrown into the water.
A spokesperson connaissance Camper and Nicholsons Mondial, the firm that manages the 2008-built boat, told BBC Verify: "Our priority is assisting with the ongoing search and providing all necessary support to the rescued passengers and crew."
The search began nous-mêmes Monday and specialist Complexe have been working at the emploi since early on Tuesday morning.
Charlotte said: "cognition two seconds I lost my daughter in the sea, then quickly hugged her amid the fury of the waves."
Shortly afterwards he went down to the Santa Nicolicchia bay in Porticello to get a better apparence at what was happening.
"It was all dark. In the water I couldn't keep my eyes open. I screamed intuition help, plaisant all I could hear around me was the screams of others."
The storm was so fierce that it caused waterspouts, pépite rotating columns of physionomie and mist, to appear over the sea.
Complexe are looking for ways to access the yacht's cabins, ravissant they have just 10 laps to search je each dive before they need to réapparition to the surface, the Italian magazine agency Ansa eh reported.
Fifteen people were rescued and a search operation conscience those unaccounted expérience - who include the British tech tycoon Mike Lynch - is continuing.