Death toll up to 48 in Australia asylum-seeker boat disaster

Australia Monday called off the search for bodies from last week's horrific shipwreck involving asylum seekers, with the prime minister raising the death toll to 48, though the exact toll may never be known.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the "best estimate" was that around 90 people were on the wooden fishing boat, which shattered on rocks Wednesday off the shore of remote Christmas Island in a storm as helpless residents looked on.

Only 42 people were rescued before the search for survivors was called off late Friday.

"We may never know the precise number, but the advice to me is that the best estimate at present is that there were around 90 people on the boat," Gillard told reporters, quoting police figures.

Thirty bodies were retrieved after the accident, including a number of babies and children, before the search was terminated Monday on "advice from experienced police divers that no further bodies would be found," Customs told AFP.

It is the worst disaster involving an asylum-seeker boat bound for Australia since the sinking of the SIEV-X off Indonesia in 2001, when all 353 onboard died.

Survivors say the latest vessel was packed with Iranians, Iraqis and Kurds when it foundered on a rocky outcrop at Christmas Island, the site of Australia's main immigration detention center and some 2,600 kilometers from the mainland.

The grim task of identifying the victims was ongoing at the hospital morgue Monday.

AFP