VIDEO: EU leaders to meet on migrant crisis

Rescue crews searched yesterday for survivors and bodies from what could be the Mediterranean’s deadliest migrant tragedy ever, as hundreds more migrants took to the sea undeterred and EU leaders said they would hold an emergency summit on Thursday to address the crisis.

If reports of at least 700 dead are confirmed, the weekend shipwreck near the Libyan coast would bring to well over 1,000 the number of migrants who have died or disappeared during the perilous Mediterranean crossing in the last week.

More than 400 are feared dead in another sinking and more than 10,000 others were rescued.

Libya is a transit point for migrants fleeing conflict, repression, and poverty in countries such as Eritrea, Niger, Syria, Iraq, and Somalia, and increased instability there and improving weather are prompting more people to attempt the dangerous crossing.

Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi said yesterday that Italian and Maltese ships were responding to two more migrant emergencies near the Libyan coast.

In a separate incident, at least three people, including a child, were killed and 93 rescued when a wooden boat carrying dozens of migrants who had departed from Turkey ran aground off the eastern Aegean island of Rhodes.

Dramatic video from a local news operation showed migrants clinging to a piece of wreckage and rescuers helping them ashore.

One survivor of the weekend sinking, identified as a 32-year-old Bangladeshi, has put the number of people on board the smugglers’ boat at as many as 950, though Giovanni Salvi, the Italian prosecutor handling the case, said that number should be treated with caution and that the coast guard estimated 700 people were on board.

Salvi said the boat had three levels, with migrants locked in the hull and on the second level. Hundreds more were on the upper deck.

The survivor was flown by helicopter to Catania, in Sicily, where he was interviewed by prosecutors. He was last night being treated in a hospital.