The Rescuers scoured treacherous seas today for survivors of a refugee boat wreck that killed at least 28 people off Australia, renewing heated debate on the grim plight of boat people travelling from Asia.
The wooden craft, crowded with up to 100 Iraqi, Kurdish and Iranian asylum seekers and their children, hit rocks at remote Christmas Island on Wednesday and was shattered by huge waves as residents looked on helplessly.
Traumatised survivors pulled from the sea after the disaster huddled in a hospital and reception center on Thrusday, with the most seriously injured flown to Perth, amid dwindling hopes of finding their fellow passengers alive.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the harrowing search and rescue mission had resumed at first light but warned the death toll would rise as searchers struggled with brutal conditions.
"We do not know with any certainty how many people there were on the boat," said Ms Gillard, who cut short her vacation to respond to the emergency.
"We have got to prepare ourselves for the likelihood that more bodies will be found and there has been further loss of life than we know now."
The Prime Minister said 42 survivors had been plucked from the ocean, downgrading an earlier estimate of 44, while 28 bodies had been recovered — also including a number of young people and children.
Immigration minister Chris Bowen earlier said there had been between 70 and 100 people on board the leaky fishing boat, according to survivors, adding that the exact number of dead would "probably never" be known.
Medics believe as many as 50 people may have perished on the jagged limestone outcrop.
"On Wednesday we saw a truly horrific event, a terrible human tragedy on what is a very dangerous coastline at Christmas Island," said Ms Gillard.
"I know the nation is shocked by what we have seen."
Cyclonic conditions whipped up by an approaching monsoonal storm were hampering search efforts, the police warned, while the task of identifying victims had begun in a makeshift morgue on the island.
Ms Gillard was forced to defend border police as questions mounted about how the boat managed to traverse the most closely-watched people smuggling corridor between Indonesia and Australia without being intercepted.
She said the boat had approached the island, some 2,600 kilometres from Australia's mainland, in the predawn darkness and "extreme weather conditions" meant it wasn't detected "until seen from Christmas Island itself".