British technology tycoon Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter are among six tourists missing after a superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily as a tornado hit the area.
Rescue officials confirmed that one body had been found after the 56-metre boat, named Bayesian, sunk around 5am on Monday near Porticello.
Four Britons are reportedly among six people missing at sea, including Mr Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah.
There were 22 people onboard the vessel at the time and 15 were rescued by coastguard patrol boats and firefighters, including Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares.
Mr Lynch co-founded software giant Autonomy in 1996 and was made an OBE for services to enterprise in 2006.
In June this year, he was cleared of conducting a massive fraud relating to an £8.64 billion sale to US company Hewlett Packard.
The coast guard said that divers had been sent to inspect the wreck of the Bayesian, which was lying at a depth of 49 metres.
Italian authorities said that a body, believed to be that of the vessel’s chef, had been recovered in their search for missing yachtsmen near the vessel’s hull.
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch said four of its inspectors were being deployed to Palermo and that a team would conduct a basic assessment of the scene.
Charlotte Golunski, who was on board the vessel, told La Repubblica newspaper of how she saved her daughter Sofia as the boat sank.
She said: “I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning.
“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.”
Charlotte and Sofia are being treated in hospital, as is Charlotte’s husband, James.
The vessel had been flying a British flag at the time of the incident, according to ship-tracking site Marine Traffic, and called at various ports in Sicily in recent days.
A spokesman for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said: “We are in contact with the local authorities following an incident in Sicily, and stand ready to provide consular support to British nationals affected.”
The captain of a nearby boat, Karsten Borner, said that when the storm hit he turned the engine on to keep control of the vessel and avoid a collision with the Bayesian.
"We managed to keep the ship in position and after the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone," he said.
The Bayesian "went flat on the water, and then down," he added.
Fisherman Francesco Cefalu said he sailed from the shore to the scene after seeing a flare at about 4.30am, but the Bayesian had sunk by the time he arrived.
He added: “I think they are inside, all the missing people.”
Storms and heavy rainfall have swept down Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat, which had lifted the temperature of the Mediterranean sea to record levels, raising the risk of extreme weather conditions, experts said.
"The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius, which is almost 3 degrees more than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms," meteorologist Luca Mercalli told Reuters.
