Captain of capsized boat detained for questioning

The captain of a cruise boat that capsized off the Bahrain coast has been detained and is being questioned over the accident in which 57 people drowned, most of them Indians and Britons, Bahrain’s public prosecutor said today.

The captain, who is Indian but was not further identified, did not have a license to pilot the boat, the prosecutor, Nawaf Hamza, told reporters in Manama. He said the captain was ordered to be held for seven days for questioning.

Coast Guard helicopters and divers were still searching for two people missing since the small cruise boat, carrying 126 people – most in a party being thrown by top construction industry expatriates from 16 countries celebrating progress on building the twin skyscrapers of Bahrain’s World Trade Centre.

The dead included 21 Indians and 15 Britons, while 67 others were rescued.

The two-deck vessel, the Al-Dana, began to list dangerously when it made a sharp turn, sending some party-goers who were dancing on the top deck sliding off into the waters of the Gulf, less than half a mile off the Bahrain coast.

As passengers on the upper deck fell over, the boat’s weight shifted further to one side, eventually flipping it, drowning many who were below deck having dinner, according to survivor.

The Al-Dana was a traditional dhow – a type of sailboat common throughout the Persian Gulf – that had been refitted to host dinner cruises.

The vessel could carry a maximum of 150 people, said an official with the vessel’s owner, Al Kobaisi Travel and Tours, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. Dinner is usually served while the vessel is docked, he said. Later, the vessel routinely sails for two hours close to the shore. The official said the vessel only had a small kitchen, and the food served to passengers was cooked on shore.

Colonel Tariq Al-Hassan, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said that the national Coast Guard and air force were combing beaches, while divers and helicopters were searching the waters for the two missing.

A nine-member team of British foreign service officers and Red Cross staffers arrived in Bahrain on Friday to work with the embassy “to provide all the comfort and support the families need over the coming days and weeks,” British embassy spokeswoman Karen Williams said.

Al-Hassan, the Interior Ministry spokesman, told a news conference on Friday night that 140 people were aboard the Al-Dana when dinner was served while it was docked at the harbour, but 14 of them disembarked before the vessel sailed.

The death toll from other nations was: five South Africans, five Filipinos, four Pakistanis, four from Singapore and one each from Germany, Ireland and South Korea.

The only American aboard the vessel, a civilian woman working for the US Navy base in Bahrain, survived.

The capsizing struck a heavy blow to the top management working on the construction of Bahrain’s World Trade Centre – a nearly completed project to build two 50-story glass and steel skyscrapers in the shape of sails on the shores on Manama.

The buildings were due to be completed this summer.

South Africa-based construction firm Murray & Roberts Group said in a statement that “more than 50 senior employees from various companies working on the World Trade Centre Project have been lost.”

The dead included the project’s chairman, David Evans, 56, a Briton; and project director Will Nolan, 50, also British.