Tornados are terrifying. Fascinating, yes, but also terrifying. The good news is, though, as long as you’re floating on the water, you should be safe, right? Sadly, that’s not the case, as 22 passengers onboard a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily found out Monday morning. As CNN reports, a waterspout hit their yacht, sinking it. One passenger has since died, with eight others, including a child, sent to the hospital and six still missing.
If you’ve seen a waterspout before, you may be confused about how one could sink a 184-foot yacht, that’s understandable. The most common kind of waterspout is non-tornadic, dissipates quickly and is usually only powerful enough to register as an F0. However, there is a much more serious type of waterspout that occurs that’s essentially just a good, old-fashioned tornado that happens to be over water instead of land.
According to the European Severe Weather Database, the waterspout spun up on Sunday and lasted until Monday morning, suggesting it was a more powerful and dangerous tornadic waterspout. Sicily also saw some serious storms Sunday night, with Brolo, a small city outside of Palermo receiving four inches of rain in only four hours. The weather forecast had warned that serious storms and strong winds would be an issue, but it appears the passengers aboard the Bayesian didn’t take those warnings seriously enough.
According to Italian authorities, divers have already located the yacht sitting about 160 feet below the surface, while helicopter crews continue to search for the missing passengers. While most of the passengers were British, one of those missing is an American. The Independent reports that Mike Lynch, the British tech entrepreneur, not the Colorado politician, is among those missing.
The captain of a boat that was anchored near the Bayesian told CNN the storm was bad enough that he had to turn on the engines to avoid a collision. “This morning we got this strong gust and we had to start the engine to keep the ship in an angled position. After the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone.”