Three hundred people are feared dead after a boat with up to 500 African asylum seekers caught fire and sank off Italian shores in the worst recent refugee disaster in the Mediterranean.
"There are 93 victims, including three children and two pregnant women," said Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who flew to the remote island of Lampedusa near where the tragedy happened.
Rescue divers later said they had identified at least 40 more bodies in and around the sunken wreck at a depth of about 40 metres, just a few hundred metres from the shore.
There were fears that the final toll could rise further to 300 or more people since rescuers said that only around 150 survivors had been plucked from the water over 12 hours after the disaster.
Rescuers and local fishermen were overcome with emotion as they spoke of chaotic early morning scenes in the water, with "a sea of heads" as desperate refugees waved their arms and screamed.
There were also poignant stories of survival like the young Eritrean woman thought dead and laid out with other corpses before medical personnel realised she was still breathing and revived her.
"Seeing the bodies of the children was a tragedy. We have run out of coffins," said Pietro Bartolo, a doctor. "In many years of work here, I have never seen anything like this," he said.
The migrants told rescuers they set fire to a blanket on the boat to attract the attention of coast guards after their vessel began taking on water and passing fishing boats ignored them.
The fire spread quickly, sowing panic on board which caused the boat to flip over and sink, as people jumped into the sea to save themselves.
Raffaele Colapinto, a local fisherman who was one the first on the scene, said: "We saw a sea of heads. We took as many as we could on board."
Visibly shaken survivors in thermal blankets - many of them bare-chested - were seen on the dock and being treated at the hospital where personnel said many had swallowed gasoline and sea water.
The bodies were being taken to a hangar at the local airport because there was no more room in the morgue on the remote island, which has a population of around 6000 people.
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta called the incident "an immense tragedy" and the government declared a national day of mourning on Friday and a minute of silence to be held in all schools.
Alfano called for more assistance from the European Union to deal with the sharp increase in refugee arrivals, calling it "a European tragedy".
TRAGEDY ISLAND: A MEDITERRANEAN MIGRATION HUB
The Italian island of Lampedusa, where up to 300 people were feared dead in a migrant boat disaster on Thursday, is one of the biggest entry points for asylum-seekers into the European Union.
Thousands arrive every year from impoverished and conflict-riven parts of Africa and the Middle East, often in perilous journeys on dilapidated and overcrowded wooden fishing boats.
Here are a few key facts about the island:
Location: The island is 138 kilometres (86 miles) from the coast of Tunisia and 215 kilometres from Sicily, meaning it is closer to North Africa than to Italy.
Size: Lampedusa measures around 20 square kilometres (7.8 square miles) and is a picturesque marine sanctuary well known for its loggerhead sea turtles.
Population: The local resident population is only around 6,000 people, most of them employed in the fishing sector and tourism in the summer months.
Arab Spring: Fifty thousand migrants and refugees landed on Lampedusa at the height of the revolts in North Africa in 2011 -- most of them from sub-Saharan Africa.
Deaths: The UN estimates 20,000 people have died trying to cross to Europe since the late 1990s.
Departure points: Most of the boats are coming from Libya, where the security situation remains fragile, and the rest come mostly from Tunisia.
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta has urged Libya to reinforce its maritime border controls and Italy is assisting the security forces there to step up checks along its land border.
Countries of origin: Many of the recent arrivals come from autocratic Eritrea and war-torn Somalia and Syria, with others also from Afghanistan, Egypt, Gambia, Mali, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Shelter: New arrivals are housed in an immigration centre that only has 250 beds that campaigners complain is often badly overcrowded and has unsanitary conditions.
They are then moved by ferry or plane to other parts of Italy to immigrant detention centres to be deported or to refugee centres if they have made asylum requests.
Island aid: Locals have repeatedly rallied to help in desperate situations like in May 2011 when they rescued 528 people from a boat that crashed off shore. The local authorities complain they do not receive enough assistance from the government.
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