Manama: A leisure boat with 130 passengers on board, including 18 Indians, sank off the coast of Bahrain late on Thursday killing at least 53 people according to Bahrain's Security Information Director Mohammad Ben Dine.
"Up to now we have recovered 53 bodies," Ben Dine told Bahrain television.
He said that passengers of 16 nationalities were on board the boat when it sank one mile off the coast of Bahrain.
They included 18 Indians, 25 British nationals, 20 Filipinos, 10 South Africans, 10 Egyptians and a number of Americans and Bangladeshis.
According to the vessel's owner Al-Dana company's Abdullah al-Qubaisi the boat had a capacity of 200 but it was allowed to carry only 100 passengers.
He said the boat was rented to a local company called Island Tours which arranged the dinner and cruise for some 150 European and Asian employees of a local company.
"They loaded the boat with more than its capacity. The captain refused to sail but they forced him to leave," Qubaisi said.
He said the captain and two of his assistants who survived the accident said the two-level traditional wooden boat known as a Banoosh capsized when too many passengers gathered on one end of the 100-metre (328-foot) long vessel.
Qubaisi said the boat was four years old.
Colonel Yussef al-Ghatim, head of the coast guard, had earlier said that 48 people were killed in the accident and 63 survived.
Bahrain's Information Minister Mohammed Abdul Ghaffar later told Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television that the number of dead rose to 50, while Health Minister Nada Haffadh put the number of injured at 27.
"The organiser of the trip said 150 people were invited but some 14 to 20 may have gotten off before it sailed," Ghatim said.
The number had earlier been put at 180 passengers.
Ghatim said most of those on board were Asians and Europeans, along with some Arab nationals, who worked for a private Bahraini company that had chartered the boat for an evening dinner and cruise off the coast of the tiny Gulf island kingdom.
Abdul Ghaffar told CNN and Al-Arabiya news channels that 25 Britons, 20 Filipinos, 10 Egyptians, 10 South Africans and a number of Bahrainis were on board.
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He ruled out terror as a reason for the disaster.
Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah al-Khalifa blamed the catastrophe on a technical failure.
"There must have been technical reasons that caused the accident. We met some of the survivors and they spoke about their surprise about the boat's capsize," he said on state television.
The accident happened at about 1845 GMT about a mile south of the Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman bridge, which links the capital Manama with the smaller Al-Muharraq island.
Ambulances rushed to the coastal guard base at Muharraq and speed boats were combing the sea looking to rescue passengers.
Bodies wrapped in white sheets were transported on stretchers off the rescue boats.
State television showed live footage of the boat turned upside down at sea with what looked like a woman's body floating underneath.
Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa was shown on television comforting distraught survivors brought to the Muharraq base.
"I jumped off the boat and I swam away. It was like as if I was born again," said one Bahraini survivor aged 58.
US Navy divers were sent to the scene to assist in the search and rescue of survivors, a navy official said.
The navy was using helicopters and small boats to get to the site, he added.
Bahrain is home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. It is a "major non-NATO ally" of the United States and has a free trade agreement with Washington.
The monarchy is an archipelago of 35 islands ruled by the Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa dynasty. It has a population of 650,000, of whom 450,000 are Bahrainis.
Bahrain, which has negligible oil reserves, is the leading banking center in the Gulf, and the main base of Islamic banking in the region.
Following is the list of the Indian nationals who died in Thursday's boat tragedy off the coast of Bahrain.
Kerala: Sikhil Babu, Abdul Latif, Abdul Wahab, Santosh Chakra Puthenpurackal, Kuthyil Mohd Majeed, Arby Mathews, Basant Kumar, Siru Arby
Tamil Nadu: Saravanan Kumar Murugesan, Chellappan Thirugnam, Muthukumar Murugan
Andhra Pradesh: Nag Bhushan Pilla, Ms Nag Bhushan Pilla
Delhi: Alok Kumar Verma, Kirit Verma
Bihar: Mohd Hassnein
Goa: Clarence William, Maryan Vyland
Karnataka: Sayeed Farooq Syed Ahmed, Rabiah Farooq
Maharashtra: Saur Suhas Thorar. Details of Uday Raj was not available.
Bahrain Boat Mishap Helpline Number: 0097339280216
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