CNN —
Rescue workers in southern Italy are continuing to search for six people missing after a tornado sank a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily early Monday, with air and naval forces deployed.
Fifteen people were rescued from the wreckage on Monday, the Italian coast guard said, after one body was later recovered from the wreckage of the ship.
Among the missing are two Americans and four Britons, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and prominent lawyer Chris Morbillo.
Here’s what we know:
A small water tornado, a type of tornado, appeared over a Mediterranean island early Monday morning, apparently capsizing a sailing boat amid heavy rain and thunderstorms.
The British-flagged yacht, called the “Basian,” was anchored about half a mile from the port of Porticello on Sicily’s north coast. Salvatore Cocina, head of Sicily’s civil defense, told CNN on Tuesday that the ship sank after its mast broke in half during the storm.
Witnesses said severe gusts and hurricane-force winds left debris falling near the pier.
The captain of a nearby ship, who was stabilising his vessel to avoid colliding with the Baysian, said more than a dozen survivors were seen clinging to life rafts in the area.
“We were hit by hurricane-force winds and had to start the engines to keep the ship at an angle,” Karsten Bauer told reporters in Palermo on Monday. “After the storm passed, we noticed the ship behind us had disappeared.”
After rescuing the four injured, Bower and his crew notified the Italian coast guard, which then rescued the remaining survivors.
One of those rescued – a child – was airlifted to Palermo’s Children’s Hospital. A total of eight people were hospitalized, the mayor’s office said.
The girl’s mother, Charlotte, described how she struggled to hold her one-year-old daughter, Sofia, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
“In two seconds I dropped the baby overboard, then quickly picked him up again in the raging waves. I held on to the baby tightly as the sea raged,” she told reporters. “Lots of people were screaming.”
Doctors at the local children’s hospital in Palermo said the mother and daughter have since been reunited with the father, James.
“The survivors are very tired and constantly asking about the missing,” Dr. Domenico Cipolla said Monday. “They talk and cry all the time because they realize they have little hope of finding their friends alive.”
Italian firefighters have sent a helicopter to help with the search, authorities said Monday. Firefighters also said they would send divers to try to enter the wreck on Tuesday after an unsuccessful attempt on Monday.
The depth of the wreck limits the time divers can work there, according to Marco Tilotta, an inspector with the diving unit of Palermo’s local fire brigade. The Italian fire brigade said on Monday that divers had reached the yacht’s hull, 49 meters (160 feet) below the surface.
Britain’s Maritime Accidents Investigation Branch (MAIB) is also planning to send a team of four investigators to Palermo to carry out a preliminary examination of the scene, a person familiar with the matter told CNN on condition of anonymity.
An Italian coastguard spokesman told CNN that the Basian was flying a British flag and had 22 passengers and crew on board, most of whom were British, along with two Britons and French, one Irish and one Sri Lankan.
Among the guests not in attendance was Mr Lynch, a 59-year-old British technology investor who fought a fraud case in the US earlier this year that stemmed from the disastrous sale of his company to technology company Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for $11 billion.
Their 18-year-old daughter is also missing. Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacarès, survived the accident. Ms Bacarès told Italian daily La Repubblica that she was woken up at 4am local time by the yacht listing. Ms Bacarès said that at first, she and her husband were not worried, but they became concerned when the yacht’s windows shattered and chaos ensued.
He spoke to the paper from a wheelchair at a hospital in Termini Imerese, Sicily, where he had abrasions on his legs and other parts of his body in bandages, the paper said.
Finance tycoon Bloomer and prominent lawyer Morbillo, along with their wives, were among the missing, according to Salvatore Cocina, head of Sicily’s civil defence.
Mr Morbillo, an American partner at Clifford Chance, was instrumental in winning a US fraud lawsuit against Mr Lynch in June. Another employee at the firm, Ira Ronald, and his partner, survived the incident, a Clifford Chance spokesman said.
According to Reuters, the 56-meter (184-foot) yacht was built by Italian firm Perini Navi in 2008. The yacht is available to charter for $215,000 (195,000 euros) per week, according to the Associated Press.
Lynch’s wife is also linked to the yacht. The Baysian is owned by Rebtom Limited, according to records from maritime information services company Equasis. The company’s most recent annual report, filed in April, lists Bacalez as the owner.
The ship was named after the statistical theory on which Lynch made his fortune, according to Reuters.
According to the Guinness World Records, the yacht’s mast is 72.27 metres (237 feet) above the water line, just shy of the world’s tallest mast at 75.2 metres. The Perini Navi website claims it is the tallest aluminium mast in the world.
Perini Navi is known for building “good quality boats,” according to Caroline White, deputy editor at BOAT International, a media group serving the superyacht industry.
White told CNN that if the Baysian lost its mast, “in theory it should be more stable,” but “if you’re in the middle of a severe storm where there are incredibly strong winds pushing against the surface of the ocean, that might be a different story,” she added.
A severe storm swept across Sicily, bringing heavy rainfall late on Sunday, and initial reports suggest that a small water tornado that developed in the area on Monday morning may have been the cause of the yacht’s sinking.
A waterspout tornado is one of several types of tornadoes, a rotating column of air that forms over water or moves from land onto water. Waterspout tornadoes are often accompanied by strong winds, high waves, hail, and dangerous lightning. They are most common over tropical oceans, but can occur almost anywhere.
Water tornadoes get their energy from warm ocean waters, and preliminary data from researchers at the Spanish Institute of Marine Sciences shows the Mediterranean is extremely hot, with daily average temperatures hitting a record high of 28.9 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit) last week.
Italian climatologist Luca Mercari told CNN that temperatures there have risen further, with sea levels around Sicily reaching nearly 30 degrees Celsius, nearly 3 degrees above normal.
“Warmer oceans increase the energy and moisture transferred to the atmosphere, which is the most important fuel for storms,” he said.