Many people are feared to have drowned after a boat carrying suspected asylum¹ seekers crashed into rocks on Australia's Christmas Island.

一艘载有疑似寻求庇护人员的船只在澳大利亚圣诞岛附近触礁，恐怕造成多人被淹死。

Pictures from the scene showed the boat, which was thought to be carrying dozens of people, smashed（粉碎） to pieces.

Witnesses said they could do little to help as the seas were too rough to approach the boat.

The boat appeared to be trying to land at Christmas Island, where Australia has an immigration detention² centre（拘留中心） .

The BBC's Nick Bryant, in Sydney, says he understands that about 70 people were on the vessel³ and about 40 were rescued.

There has been no official confirmation⁴ of the numbers of victims or survivors⁵.

'Desperate'

Residents of Christmas Island said they were alerted to the disaster by the sounds of screaming from the shore.

Australian media said residents alerted the police at 0545 (2045 GMT on Tuesday).

Australia Customs launched two inflatable boats（充气橡皮艇） to rescue survivors.

One witness, documentary（纪录片） maker⁶ Philip Stewart, said he arrived at the shore about an hour after the boat first hit the rocks and it was already in pieces.

He said he saw about seven survivors but conditions were too rough for rescuers to get close enough to help.

"They were waving and shouting and screaming for help," he told Australia's ABC News.

"They were desperate, by that stage they had been in the water for an hour already.

"They hung on for as long as they possibly could and each one of them was eventually thrown off into the sea onto the rocks."

He said he saw one person picked up while the others drowned.

Australia has seen an increase this year in asylum seekers arriving by boat.

There are currently almost 3,000 people in the Christmas Island processing centre waiting for officials to rule on their cases.

The island is in the Indian Ocean, about 1200km (750 miles) north-west of the Australian mainland and about 300km south of Indonesia.