Tourist boat sinks off Bahrain, at least 48 dead

Rescue workers bring a body ashore in Manama. Picture / Reuters

MANAMA - A tourist boat carrying more than 130 people on a dinner cruise sank off Bahrain today and coastguard officials said at least 49 people had drowned.


Coastguard commander Youssif al-Ghatam told a news conference that 63 people had been rescued so far.


He said most of those on board were Asians, but also included Europeans and Arabs.


He later told Al Jazeera television 49 had died.


Arab television stations said more bodies had been found, bringing the death toll to up to 56. But those figures could not be immediately confirmed.


US and Bahraini officials said there was no indication that the sinking was the result of an attack.


"Up to this moment, it appears totally unlikely," Information Minister Mohammed Abdul-Ghaffar Abdullah told Al Arabiya television.


Al Arabiya quoted the boat's owner as saying it may have been overloaded and capsized after many passengers gathered on one side of the vessel.


A survivor told Al Jazeera that the two-storey boat had capsized after apparently hitting a wave as it was turning.


Abdullah said initial reports suggested around 25 Britons, 20 Filipinos, 10 South Africans and 10 Egyptians were among those on board.


Organisers said around 150 people had signed up for the dinner cruise but around 130 were believed to have been on board when the boat sank, around 1.5km off the coast. They said the boat had been hired by a local contracting company for a cruise.


Bahrain's Health Minister Nada Haffadh told Al Jazeera that 30 of the rescued were hospitalised. She said they included 17 Indians, four Britons, two South Africans, two Filipinos, and one each from Italy, China, Thailand and Bahrain.


British diplomats were at the Bahrain coastguard centre and the hospital where survivors and the dead were being taken, a British Foreign Office spokesman said in London.


Commander Jeff Breslau, a spokesman for the US Navy's 5th Fleet which is based in Bahrain, said 16 Navy divers and a US ship were assisting in rescue efforts. He said the boat had sunk in a harbour close to the shore.


"The first report we received was that a dhow (traditional wooden boat) has capsized. We are preparing a helicopter to join the rescue," Breslau said.


- REUTERS