Bahraini Boat Tipped As Guests Danced

Some crowded the dance floor on the upper deck while others dined on the deck below when the cruise boat, the Al-Dana, began a sharp turn and suddenly swayed.

Passengers, senior employees of an array of companies charged with building the 50-story twin spires of Bahrain's World Trade Center, lost their balance and fell overboard as the craft turned over in the inky waters of the Persian Gulf.

"I fell to the floor, and then I slid into the sea," said Indian survivor Jaikumar George.

Bahrain television quotes the owners as saying the ship was overloaded and that it overturned when most of its passengers shifted to one side.

Once it tipped, George said it became clear that the pleasure boat wasn't equipped for an emergency. There were no lifejackets or other flotation devices, or lifeboats.

"People were screaming and yelling, they were trying to climb back onto the ship," George said.

Of the 126 people aboard, 57 drowned, 67 were rescued and two remained missing after the boat capsized Thursday night in fair weather less than half a mile off the coast of this island nation on the western shore of the Gulf.

The dead included 21 Indians and 15 Britons among a patchwork of construction industry executives from 16 countries who were celebrating progress on a pair of skyscrapers here.

Bahraini authorities have declined to discuss the cause of the disaster, saying they would wait for results of an investigation ordered by Prime Minister Sheik Khalifah bin Salman Al Khalifah.

The Al-Dana was a modified version of the traditional dhow sailboat common throughout the Gulf. An official with the vessel's owner, Al Kobaisi Travel and Tours, said it was an old dhow that recently was refitted for dinner cruises. The Al-Dana is 85 feet long and 23 feet wide, according to the Bahraini coast guard.

The official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the vessel could carry a maximum of 150 people. Dinner is normally served while the vessel is docked, he said. Later, the ship routinely sails for two hours close to the shore. The official said the vessel had a small kitchen, and food served to passengers was cooked on shore.

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

Al-Hassan said the ship's captain, a non-Bahraini, survived and was being interrogated along with his assistant.

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 Center Project have been lost."

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

The shell of the office tower complex, with its sail-shaped twin towers, dominates Manama's waterfront. According to the Web site, the project will become "the world's first to suspend electricity-generating wind turbines between two commercial tower structures."

Murray & Roberts Chief Executive Brian Bruce said the company was launching an investigation into the choice of the Al-Dana as the venue for a celebration.

"We are deeply shocked by this tragedy. Our sympathy and condolences go out to all those who have been affected," Bruce said.

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 U.S. Navy base in Bahrain, survived.

George, the Indian survivor, suggested the Al-Dana was not designed to carry so many passengers.

"The stability of the boat wasn't good," he said from his bed in Salmaniya Hospital in Manama. He had bandages on his head, arms and legs with deep cuts and bruises.

"There was something wrong with that boat. It was oscillating so strongly when other boats were stable."

George, an engineer with the Swiss firm Hilti, said the vessel began rocking with increasing force. Passengers on the upper deck fell over and slid along the deck, which shifted the boat's weight to one side. His colleagues spilled into the sea and the boat flipped, drowning many diners on the lower deck, he added.

He and other survivors clung to the capsized vessel until rescuers arrived, while those trapped inside drowned.

"I thought I was going to go down. I was totally under the boat," he said. "I called my God and he brought me up. God gave me the courage to hold my breath and push away from under the boat."