At least 27 asylum seekers have been killed after their boat smashed apart on rocks off Australia's remote Christmas Island today, customs officials said.
The Customs and Border Protection Service said in a statement that 41 survivors have been plucked from the water and 27 bodies have been recovered.
The wooden boat crashed into jagged rocks along Christmas Island this morning. Women and children are among the dead.
Christmas Island residents on a cliff above watched in horror as the boat broke apart with a crack, dumping passengers into monstrous waves that pounded them against the rocks.
“It was just horrible. People getting crushed. Bodies, dead children, the whole thing was pretty awful,” island resident Simon Prince said.
Officials gave no immediate word on the nationality of the victims.
“The rescue is being conducted in extremely difficult and dangerous conditions,” the customs department said. “The search and rescue situation is ongoing.”
Women and children were among the dead, Western Australia state Premier Colin Barnett said in a statement.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service sent doctors to the island to treat 30 injured victims, said Joeley Pettit-Scott, the group’s spokeswoman. Three patients were critically injured, two men with head injuries and one woman with blunt abdominal trauma, she said.
Acting prime minister Wayne Swan said the vessel was a people smugglers’ boat, but it was not clear where the passengers were from.
Christmas Island is a remote Australian territory closer to Indonesia than the Australian mainland and a frequent target of refugee hopefuls, who are housed in a detention centre there. Australia is a prime destination for people from poor, often war-ravaged countries such as Afghanistan who want to start a new life.
Photographs and videos taken by witnesses at the scene show the wooden boat crashing into the rocks and breaking apart. The images also show people floating in the water amid the wreckage. It is unclear if they are alive or dead. The boat was about 10m long, with a cabin covered by a sheet of fabric or plastic.
Mr Prince, who lives next to the cliff where the boat crashed, said he was woken by what he thought were cheers. He walked to the cliff and instead heard cries for help from a boat just offshore.
“The engine had failed,” Mr Prince said. “They were washing backward and forward very close to the cliffs here, which are jagged limestone cliffs, very nasty.”
Mr Prince called the police and soon there were dozens of locals standing on the cliff, wondering how they could help despite the storm and crashing waves. He said the boat tossed for an hour before it finally hit the rocks at the base of the cliff.
“When the boat hit the cliff there was a sickening crack. All the people on board rushed to the land side, which is the worst thing they could do, but I don’t think anybody could swim. I think there were about two lifeboats on board this thing,” he said.
Mr Prince, who owns a dive shop, and other neighbours hurled about 50 or 60 lifejackets into the water. But many just floated away. Some would-be rescuers were injured on the rocks while trying to get the lifejackets to those in the water, he said.
Resident Michael Foster watched in horror as women and children screamed out for help in the churning seas below. “They had lifejackets on them, but the water was just pushing them up ... and throwing them towards the rocks,” Mr Foster said. “It was a pretty horrible situation.”
Mr Foster, an electrician, saw around 50 people struggling against the 4m waves when he first arrived at the cliff, but the currents soon began to sweep them away. He counted around 10 bodies that appeared to be dead. In the churning whitewater, it was impossible to tell whether they were women or men, he said.
The Australian Federal Police would say only that they had responded to a “maritime incident” involving a suspected illegal vessel on the island. The department declined to comment further.
Mr Prince said navy and customs vessels were on the other side of the island helping another boat of asylum seekers in calmer seas and took a while to respond to the calls for help. “Eventually the navy did come around and start picking people out of the water but it was too late for some,” Mr Prince said.
Asylum seekers who illegally enter Australian waters by boat are sent to Christmas Island’s detention centre or detention centres on the Australian mainland while their refugee claims are reviewed.
In recent years, many have come from Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. Generally, they first fly to Indonesia and then continue on to Australia in cramped, barely seaworthy boats.
AP