Survivors indicated that between 400 and 600 people were aboard the smugglers’ boat, he added.
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A boat overloaded with hundreds of migrants capsized off the Libyan coast in April.
LE Niamh is heading toward the Sicilian port of Palermo, where it will arrive on Thursday afternoon with most of the survivors. “However, the vessel capsized”.
He added that while the sea was very calm, “the boat overturned and sank quickly because it was made of metal.”
Life rafts were being dropped to the sea while rigid inflatables were also being sent.
According to the Irish authorities, 367 people, including 12 women and 13 children, had been rescued.
The relentless wave of departures from north Africa means often rescuers have to deal with several disasters at once, and the nearest vessel is forced to do its best at saving all those in difficulty – sometimes at night – whether or not it is equipped to deal with shipwrecks.
The distressed vessel was reported to be 110 km northwest of Tripoli.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have lost their lives, the survivors and the rescuers for whom this is an extremely hard operation”.
“Yesterday is heavy on our minds but the boats will not stop”, the organization said on Twitter.
Surviving migrants are brought aboard Irish and Italian Navy life-boats.
The moment when the boat overturned and the migrants were tipped into the sea “was like being flung from a catapult”, Mohamed, a Palestinian farmer, told MSF in a story recounted in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
Two vessels – the Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) ship Dignity One and Irish patrol vessel Le Niamh – were dispatched to the scene immediately, but the boat capsized after the migrants all rushed to one side in anticipation of being rescued, the coast guard said.
“As the operation is now ongoing, with all personnel fully engaged in the rescue, it is hard to ascertain full details on the scale of the incident”, he said.
The development comes as Italy is trying to host almost 100,000 migrants who have traveled to the Mediterranean to escape war, persecution or poverty in the Middle East and Africa. Once there, they set sail in flimsy motorized rubber dinghies or rickety fishing boats. When the boats have problems, someone aboard contacts the coast guard by satellite phone requesting rescue. Others are feared to have gone down with the boat.
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Numerous newcomers look to move swiftly to wealthier northern Europe, including to Britain from Calais, France.
