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Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, August 20th. A luxury yacht capsized after encountering a storm in the waters near Sicily, Italy in the early morning of the 19th, resulting in one death and six others missing, including Mike Lynch, a well-known British software technology entrepreneur.

According to the Italian Coast Guard, the wrecked yacht is about 56 meters long and registered in the UK. It crashed in the waters near Palermo, the capital of Sicily, in the early morning of the 19th. Shortly before sunrise that day, the yacht was hit by a storm. "The wind was very strong at the time and bad weather was forecast, but it was not so severe," a Coast Guard official told Reuters.

The yacht was carrying 22 people, and after rescue, 15 people, including a 1-year-old baby, were rescued. According to local media reports, 8 rescued people were transferred to local hospitals and their conditions are stable. The 6 missing people are from the UK, the US and Canada.

At the time of the incident, there was another ship sailing near the yacht, and its crew witnessed the shipwreck and participated in the rescue. The captain of the ship told Reuters that he managed to stabilize his ship and avoid colliding with the yacht, but after the storm passed, he found that "the ship behind was gone." The crew found several survivors on a life raft and brought them ashore to be picked up by the Coast Guard.

According to Reuters, Italy has experienced several weeks of heat waves and has recently been hit by storms and heavy rains, which have caused floods and mudslides in the northern part of the country, causing serious losses and damage.

Rescuers have dived underwater to inspect the wreckage of the sunken yacht, and local procuratorate has launched an investigation into the maritime accident.

According to a website related to the yacht industry, the wrecked yacht was manufactured in 2008 and renovated in 2020. It can carry 10 crew members and 12 passengers. Information from the "Ship Finder" website shows that the yacht left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on the 14th and was last seen in the waters east of Palermo on the evening of the 18th, with a status of "anchored".

Lynch, one of the missing persons, is 59 years old and is known as the "British version of Bill Gates". He founded the software company "Autonomy" and sold it to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. Lynch was charged with fraud in the United States for this transaction, but was acquitted in June this year. (Shen Min)