Christmas Island Shipwreck Leaves 42 Dead| Christmas Island tragedy

Christmas Island Shipwreck Leaves 42 Dead| Christmas Island tragedy


A boat carrying suspected asylum seekers wrecked off the coast of Australia's Christmas Island, Dec. 15. Although 42 passengers were rescued, dozens of others drowned, according to a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) statement.

“We believe that far too many people are tragically losing their lives as they take desperate measures to escape conflict, persecution, and poverty,” said UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming said in a statement.

TONY EASTLEY: The shipwreck was a slow unfolding horror for locals who could do little to help. Some of them reported smelling diesel fumes well before they realised a boat was so close to shore.

Dispersing fuel on water is a method of calming seas around a craft but in this case the large wooden boat was probably already doomed, crippled and being blown ashore by strong north-west winds.

Residents on Christmas Island could hear the people's cries but were helpless to do anything.

They've been left traumatised by the tragedy.

Simon prince runs a local dive shop.

SIMON PRINCE: When they eventually did collide with the island it didn't just hit the rocks once. It smashed repeatedly against the cliffs.

It was a horrific scene with people being thrown through the air, boards being thrown 30 metres up in the air and raining down amongst the volunteers. It was just a seriously horrific situation.

I don't believe a single one of them could swim. There were no life boats, life jackets on board or maybe one or two. It's starting to become a little bit difficult for me to remember.

But when those people were in the water that's when we were all busy passing out our own life jackets down to them.

Christmas Islanders volunteered together or banded together and we saved a lot of lives though not enough.

People are disturbed by the scenes here, most definitely. Certainly I am. I've got some very unsettling images and I can't imagine I'm going to forget the sight of you know a small girl lying face down in the water with a life jacket around her.

TONY EASTLEY: Christmas Island dive shop owner Simon Prince.

Michael Foster is another local resident who took part in yesterday's rescue efforts. He says the Christmas Island community will now need to support each other through a difficult time.

He's speaking here with AM's Samantha Hawley.

MICHAEL FOSTER: Yeah I'm coping alright. I'm surrounded by friends and so forth to be able to talk things through and not worry about it.

It was a pretty horrific situation. So not being able to do too much from land-based and just oversee things is not the situation you'd want to be in really.

I think it's a bit worse than might what might have even spoken about previously but that's not official so…

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: You mean there's more deaths than previously thought?

MICHAEL FOSTER: That's for sure. The rescue was done as well as it could be I think from the navy's behalf and from the land base. And just the conditions of the ocean wasn't doing any favours to anybody in the water at the time.

So it's an unfortunate situation I suppose and I suppose you can only blame people that send them away in conditions that are in front of them, the smugglers obviously.

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: But as you say, you think the community is going to have to deal with - the magnitude of this is going to be greater than initially thought?

MICHAEL FOSTER: I would suggest so. I wouldn't be looking forward to any situations of bodies bearing up somewhere on beaches in front of kids or anything like that, that's for sure.

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: And as you say one of the hard things to deal with is that there were children on board that boat.

MICHAEL FOSTER: Yeah there's generally families and so forth on these boats. I think I don't really need to say anymore. I'm getting advised not to, put it that way, from my surrounding peoples.

It's just a pretty sad moment for anybody that was involved down there in regards to the people that were getting rescued and the people that were rescuing them. It's just a very unfortunate situation and mainly there's more needs to be done about these smugglers.

TONY EASTLEY: Local Christmas Island electrician Michael Foster.