A mayday call by French coastguard requesting urgent help from “all ships” during yesterday’s Channel boat emergency has been obtained by Sky News.
Twenty-seven people – 17 men, seven women and two teenage boys and a girl – died while trying to cross to the UK in a flimsy boat, which capsized near Calais. Two people survived and were taken to hospital with hypothermia.
In the mayday call, the coastguard can be heard putting out an alert to all boats in the area.
:: Death in the Channel – watch a special programme on Sky News at 7pm
The radio operator gives co-ordinates and asks nearby vessels to attend, telling them that 15 people are in the water.
The operator says: “Mayday relay, mayday relay, mayday relay. This is Gris-Nez emergency, Griz-Nez emergency, Gris-Nez emergency.
“Information number one: Mayday. 15 man overboard, approximately. 15 man overboard.”
They add: “All ships in this area are requested to have a [unclear] lookout to proceed to this area to take contact and report any information to Gris-Nez emergency co-ordinating this operation.”
Charles Devos, regional manager of life boat association (SNSM) in Calais, was one among the first people at the scene.
He told Sky News that he dragged six bodies from the sea, including a pregnant woman, and seeing those drowned was “traumatic”.
“I can’t remember such a tragedy. It’s inexplicable,” he said.
“I saw the blow-up boat had really deflated. Was it a valve that came loose or did it hit an object? You never know but I don’t think it was a collision.”
And he said: “I think it happened due to overloading. Don’t forget, you think the sea is calm. The sea isn’t calm because it’s nearly always choppy.”
Mr Devos went on: “It’s very, very shocking. It was a bit like the film Titanic when you saw all these people plunged into the water, drowning, with no means of being able to be rescued.
“Unfortunately we were only able to recover the dead people.”
Describing the dinghy, he said: “It was an inflatable, very light boat that was around 10m long.”
He added: “It’s not the first time I’ve boarded this type of boat. It’s really light boats that are overwhelmed. The tragedy came about because the boat was overwhelmed. Boats that transport 20 people, we find them with around 50 people on them”.
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1:50
PM ‘deeply saddened’ by migrant deaths in Channel
The Kurdish government has confirmed to Sky News that Kurds were on the boat and it has appealed to the UK and EU for help stopping migrants leaving Iraq.
The two survivors were Somali and Iraqi.
Wednesday’s loss of life is the worst of the current migrant crisis, which has seen the number of people reaching the UK surge to more than 25,000 this year.
The UK insists France must do more to stop the crossings, while France says the UK should deter people from wanting to enter the country in the first place.
French interior minister Gerard Darmanin told RTL radio that migrants are “often attracted” to the UK jobs market and blamed human trafficking gangs who promise the “El Dorado of England”.
In a hostel in northern France, the atmosphere was tense.
A father and his family were waiting for a call, a sign sea conditions were right and it is finally time to go.
After fleeing from Kurdistan, they’ve paid around €8000 (£6,850) to cross the Channel on a dinghy provided by smugglers who value money over life.
“We don’t have any other option except this dinghy. The surveillance for the trucks [crossing the Channel] is very strong and that is why we have to take this journey. We will either die or succeed,” Mohammed said ahead of the journey.
To tell their story safely, all the family’s names have been changed.
The UK wasn’t their destination of choice; for years Germany was their home but then, after a failed asylum bid and threatened with deportation last month, they ran.
If they stayed, Mohammed says they would have been sent back home where he fears he could be killed.
But after years of making friends and plans, overnight his family’s lives changed.
His teenage daughter Sara says when she was told they were leaving at first she didn’t believe it.
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“I was like, no, this is going to be a bad joke,” she explains, “Then the day we left, I looked at my friends… they didn’t know that I was leaving and we will never see each other again.”
Last week the family was among them, cramming into a rickety vessel with around 60 others.
“It was a difficult and dangerous journey that no one was expecting to survive. We were all thinking that our lives would end in a matter of seconds,” Mohammed says.
The boat left a French beach near Dunkirk at 10pm.
After around an hour into the journey they ran out of fuel and then drifted for hours.
The conditions meant children were screaming and crying.
Many onboard were being sick and everyone was soaked with freezing water.
When the French coastguard arrived, 25 people asked to be rescued but the other 36 refused, determined to keep pushing ahead.
Desperate to reach UK waters, they paddled with their hands and then used the dregs of the fuel to give them one last boost until they were picked up by the UK coastguard.
Audio has emerged of a first responder call as officials halted traffic on both sides of the Francis Scott Key Bridge moments before it collapsed.
The cargo ship had issued a mayday call to alert authorities it had lost power before it collided with the Baltimore bridge on Tuesday morning.
Following the call, Maryland Transportation Authority Police Dispatch and Response officials acted swiftly, shutting down the north and south sides of the bridge.
In the audio, one official instructs: “Hold all traffic on the Key Bridge… There’s a ship approaching that just lost their steering so until we get that under control, we’ve got to stop all traffic.
“Make sure no one’s on the bridge right now. There’s a crew up there… You might want to notify the foreman to see if we can get them off the bridge temporarily.”
Another responds saying he would “grab the workers” but it was too late.
A second later, a voice is heard saying: “The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever… everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed.”
In other developments, investigators at the National Safety Transportation Board have confirmed that the cargo ship’s data recorder has now been recovered – and they are examining whether contaminated fuel played a role in the crash.
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0:30
New angle shows moment bridge hit
The Dali ship ploughed into one of the bridge’s supports and, in an instant, the 1.6-mile-long structure had fallen into the Patapsco River, along with vehicles and workers who were on it at the time.
Six workers missing after the collapse are presumed dead, the executive vice president of Brawner Builders has confirmed.
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Officials say the rescue mission for the group has now become a recovery operation.
It comes as Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, was named as one of the six people on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed.
All 22 crew members on board the ship, including the two pilots, have been accounted for and there were no reports of injuries.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore said he spoke to the families of the victims, assuring them since the mission had transitioned from search and rescue to recovery he would “put every possible resource to bring [them] a sense of closure”.
He praised the “true heroism” of the first responders who “saved countless lives that night”.
Mr Moore also said he was “overwhelmed” by the amount of support from both the Democratic and Republican parties as he stressed the importance of getting the bridge rebuilt.
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1:20
‘True accountability’ for Baltimore bridge collapse
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has promised that he will visit Baltimore “as soon as possible”, adding that the federal government will cover the “full cost” of rebuilding the bridge – which experts say could be over $600m (£474m).
He told reporters: “Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident. At this time we have no other indication, no other reason to believe there’s any intentional act here.
“Personnel on board the ship were able to alert the Maryland Department of Transportation that they had lost control of their vessel.”
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0:59
Timeline of Baltimore bridge collapse
Mr Biden added that this meant local authorities were able to close the bridge before it was struck, which “undoubtedly saved lives”.
He continued: “Our prayers are with everyone involved in this terrible accident and all the families [affected], especially those waiting for news of their loved one right now. I know every minute in that circumstance feels like a lifetime.”
The Key Bridge carries the Interstate 695 highway over the Patapsco River southeast of the Baltimore metropolitan area.
Its main section spans 1,200 feet and was one of the longest continuous truss bridges in the world upon its completion, according to the National Steel Bridge Alliance.
The Dali was previously involved in a minor incident when it hit a quay at the Port of Antwerp in Belgium in 2016, where it was damaged, according to Vessel Finder and maritime accident site Shipwrecklog.
Audio has emerged of a first responder call as officials halted traffic on both sides of the Francis Scott Key Bridge moments before it collapsed.
The cargo ship had issued a mayday call to alert authorities it had lost power before it collided with the Baltimore bridge on Tuesday morning.
Following the call, Maryland Transportation Authority Police Dispatch and Response officials acted swiftly, shutting down the north and south sides of the bridge.
In the audio, one official instructs: “Hold all traffic on the Key Bridge… There’s a ship approaching that just lost their steering so until we get that under control, we’ve got to stop all traffic.
“Make sure no one’s on the bridge right now. There’s a crew up there… You might want to notify the foreman to see if we can get them off the bridge temporarily.”
Another responds saying he would “grab the workers” but it was too late.
A second later, a voice is heard saying: “The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever… everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed.”
In other developments, investigators at the National Safety Transportation Board have confirmed that the cargo ship’s data recorder has now been recovered – and they are examining whether contaminated fuel played a role in the crash.
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Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:30
New angle shows moment bridge hit
The Dali ship ploughed into one of the bridge’s supports and, in an instant, the 1.6-mile-long structure had fallen into the Patapsco River, along with vehicles and workers who were on it at the time.
Six workers missing after the collapse are presumed dead, the executive vice president of Brawner Builders has confirmed.
Officials say the rescue mission for the group has now become a recovery operation.
It comes as Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, was named as one of the six people on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed.
All 22 crew members on board the ship, including the two pilots, have been accounted for and there were no reports of injuries.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has promised that he will visit Baltimore “as soon as possible”, adding that the federal government will cover the “full cost” of rebuilding the bridge – which experts say could be over $600m (£474m).
He told reporters: “Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident. At this time we have no other indication, no other reason to believe there’s any intentional act here.
“Personnel on board the ship were able to alert the Maryland Department of Transportation that they had lost control of their vessel.”
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0:59
Timeline of Baltimore bridge collapse
Mr Biden added that this meant local authorities were able to close the bridge before it was struck, which “undoubtedly saved lives”.
He continued: “Our prayers are with everyone involved in this terrible accident and all the families [affected], especially those waiting for news of their loved one right now. I know every minute in that circumstance feels like a lifetime.”
The Key Bridge carries the Interstate 695 highway over the Patapsco River southeast of the Baltimore metropolitan area.
Its main section spans 1,200 feet and was one of the longest continuous truss bridges in the world upon its completion, according to the National Steel Bridge Alliance.
The Dali was previously involved in a minor incident when it hit a quay at the Port of Antwerp in Belgium in 2016, where it was damaged, according to Vessel Finder and maritime accident site Shipwrecklog.