we have italy, malta and merchant navy ships in the area assisting, trying to find as many survivors as possible. the tragedy happened between midnight and 1 am when a portuguese ship was accosted by a fishing boat laden with 700 migrants. at one point the passengers aboard the boat moved to one side tipping the boat and sending everyone into the water. it was dark and it was terrible. the captain was talking to the coast guard via radio. as soon as the emergency was launched a number of merchant ships in the year they were together with helicopters and ships. from the maltese and italian naveies, tried as hard as they could to find as many survivors as possible. out of 700, only 28 survivors were plucked from the sea alive. while the search goes on. to give you, again, a perspective of how things are developing the prime minister of malta spoke with regards to this tragedy, saying that this is probably europe's worst tragedy since the world war ii involving innocent lives. he was involved about 1:00a.m. that the italians had been requesting the assistance of the maltese for the trag

there are 17 vessels involved in this including military and navy vessels and merchant shipping which has responded to the callout by the coast guard and navy in order to join this effort. the physician have not been updated as far as the numbers rescued and missing. an hour ago is our last information of 29 rescued, 49 dead. these are overcrowded unseaworthy vessels put to sea from the libyan coasts. they do not have passenger manifests. it's impossible to know how many were onboard. what survivors are telling the people pulling them from the water on this occasion is that there were hundreds, possibly as many as 700 aboard that small 20-meter long boat, and with only 49 that we know of so far actually saved then this would mark the biggest single loss of life since 2011 when this whole phenomenon first started. >> ahuge tragedy indeed. we've heard that the italian prime minister held an emergency cabinet meeting about this latest tragedy. what has come off it? >> the political effort, the political pressure that's been coming to try to tackle this issue has snowballed. n.g.o.'s dema

involved in the search and rescue operation today and that includes not just navy and coast guardianships but also merchantls brought in the area and some uneffectively in the area to help the operation. it's a large area of sea because of the fact that the boats or the migrant boat went down in the darkness there is obviously the strong likelihood that survivors drifted during the course of the night and so the search area has to be reasonably wide. and the -- they have put a plane and two helicopters up in order to try to have an overview of the search area as well. but as i say the fact that the vessel went down and the fact that so few people have been recovered either alive or dead from the sea means that the hundreds that are believed to have been on board that boat are sunk at this point in time to the bottom of the sea. and the hopes of finding any more survivors at this stage are very much receding. >> all right, paul thanks very much paul brennan on the east coast of the island of sicily. european island nation of malta participating in search and rescue operation and we are joined on the phone f

there is a major operation involving maltese navy vessels italian court guard and navy vessels, as well as merchant shipping -- to preserve life. it is a deary stressing and gripping operation. >> the italian coast guard has had to rescue thousands of migrants in the last week alone. >> 11,000 have made it, but if the numbers of boats who aren't making it, which has left dramatic--paired with-- >> ok. >> it's 1500 to 1600 people have lost their lives in the last week alone. >> apologies for the weak connection there with paul brennan in sicily for us. let's cross over to phil in rome. the question we all ask is what's being done about all this. italy for sometime now has been saying it cannot cope with this burden alone so what's been the response across italy and europe? >> that's the response of italy not enough is being done. i got quite a few responsibilities actually, we start with the prime minister of malta saying a tragedy is unfolding in the mediterranean the number one point is libya. unless it is secured witness the tragedies will not be the last. he said those who turn a blind eye will

shipped off at malevolence and the royal navy as well as merchant ships traverse the atlantic between europe, africa, the caribbean and british north america. they regularly stopped at ports for supplies and trade. the interconnected global nature of these imperial networks gave the virus the potential to unleash a major pandemic that can kill many thousands of people. and in fact, a sailor did contract a bond in a british worship coming from barbados, part of a convoy of ships that were headed for angwin and stopped off in boston for repairs and to trade, and it was aboard the hms seahorse. the seahorse was set for boston, massachusetts, the center of american puritanism since its founding exactly a century before. puritanism was shaped by a covenant of theology and the puritans understanding in reaction to the disease would be completely shaped by their puritan outlook. puritanism was its greatest challenge because of the outbreak. the ship pulled into boston harbor and many of the crew went ashore including this one sailor who had smallpox, and he didn't know what. he went ashore a

coastgard and navy ships from malta and italy have been joined by merchant as well ass. planes are chris-crossing the sea where the my grant boat capsized. scouring the waves for signs of life. as the hours pass the likelihood of finding more survivors grows more remote. >> the sicilian point has been the drop-off point for tennessee much thousands. the town's mayor told me he was in perilous last week demanding eu assistance. >> i baked my fist on the table and said it's not a temporary emergency. it's a problem we will have to deal with for many more years. there needs to be a european policy on immigration and help for the desperate people who ask for asylum in our countries. >> in the vatican, the pope urged europe's leaders to recognize the migrants not just as numbers but as human beings. >> i make a heart felt appeal to the international community to react decisively and quick that's correct see to it that such trat employees are not repeated. >> the it al ran prime minister was briefed by his naval commanders and gave a televised news conference. his words aimed

are some 17 vessels involved in that search and rescue operation both military, navy and coast guard, as well as merchant shipping, called into action to respond. hundreds of people possibly to be plucked from the water. there is a weather front moving in in the direction that have area of sea where the search and rescuest is going on that. we heard there were 49 rescued and 24 dead. the survivors that have been pulled from the a year have said on that 20-meter boat there were at least 700 people, so that is hundreds of people missing and if they're not found that the constitute the biggest loss of life since this began in 2011. >> what have been some of the political reactions? i understand the italian prime minister has been calling his counterparts in europe. >> there is a lot of pressure. there's been pressure building all week. in monday of last week, we had another boat go down with an estimated 400 people losing their lives. now, just last night saturday night, we've got to 10 shelly 700 people losing their lives. the numbers are getting bigger and bigger and the pressure on the european leaders i

merchant ships involved in the operation and these merchant ships more and more are becoming part of the rescue operation. the resources for the coast guard and navyre limited. they are racing to try to find people. this boat as we understand with as many as 650 people on it was a larger vessel, maybe two-level vessel that had gone under in increasingly difficult seas. is of course spring weather. it's not smooth sailing as it is in may and june. people are setting out from libya any way despite the rougher weather coming again. 11,000 people arrived last week from april 11th until yesterday. because the seas had calmed and people came in massive droves. so we are seeing people coming despite the fact the weather is changing which makes the whole thing more dangerous. this is a boat, bigger boats tend to carry more minors and children and families because they are deemed to be safer than the fishing vessels. this underscores the humanitarian disaster underway here. >> the tragedy unfolding here is quite grim. in terms of the context for all of this, we have spoken many times before about the fact that italy was asking for help. they couldn't keep

italian and maltese military, the navy's put out a distress call for available shipping to head to the area to help in the rescue efforts. there's military vessels and merchant shipping in the area looking for survivors. there's one aircraft and two rescue helicopters dispatched to the area to help in the search and rescue effort. it appears a serious major catastrophe has happened in the see. >> clearly there's something wrong with this picture, from the start to the finish. so much so that the pope has been speaking out as well. what has he been saying. what is he hoping to achieve. >> well there has been increasing pressure over the past week as the numbers of estimated aid dead started to accelerate. in the first quarter of the three months of 2015 of estimated around 500 died trying to make the crossing from libya to the coast line. beginning of last week monday another 400 are believed to have died. now we have 700-800. numbers are sketchy, it's a big number. the pope has weighed in this weekend, and heed the following, that it's clear that the proportion of the phenomenon required a wider involvement, and we must not tire in urging a broader commitmen

ship may have collide with a merchant ship that had come to help causing the boat to capsize and we're get new video of a rescue of more than 400 migrants by the italian navyrd a fishing vessel headed for the italian coast. karl penhaul is joining us live from catania in italy right now. what's the latest on the recovery and the investigation? >> the more you look at all this wolf you just see that this is a myigrant crisis escalating with every hour that passes. in terms of the weekend shipwreck as you rightly point out, a syrian and tunisian being accused of captaining that boat and being involved with the smuggling ring they are under investigation by the italian prosecutor and also what the italian prosecutor is looking to do is interview the survivors who were plucked from that ship and to find out a little bit more about exactly how many migrants were on board there, who possibly was behind organizing the people smuggling racket and so that hopefully could help italian authorities to crack down on this in the future. if you look at the panorama right now, it is horrendous. two italian navy ships currently making their way to sicily with more than 440

merchant, who live in these areas of the region. and the just east is the -- state. it is quite different. it is from the state here that we are talking about -- which the soviet navy had his eyes on at one time. this is why obama, until now, was not in the coalition because we are talking about a neighbor state here. and a lot of policy will be driven by its neighbor. the numbers fluctuate up and down. in saudi arabia, at times, has been into the millions. you can take the are one million if you include -- [indiscernible] elsewhere, yemenis all over the world. i probably on the moon, as some say. they were the first arabs to -- [indiscernible] in that particular unit, the largest of the uaw. this page just a brush stroke of the context here. not we will go to -- who is with the congressional service. he is the person who does the research, writing, and analytical written work for members of the united states congress. i ask that you write the question on the three by five cards and pass them to the national council staff, who will bring them forward and use them in the queue and a -- q&a. he called yesterday to say i will be there. so we are looking for an operati

merchant fleet. one-third of their navy. >> we're in the forward torpedo room. you'll see a couple of torpedo tubes in front of me. there's two down below in the deck. during the war there was two on top. so originally she had six torpedo tubes but after the reconfiguration to make this vessel a hunter killer, they had to remove the top two tubes so they could install on the exterior of that bulkhead hydrophones to include more sonar equipment to make it one that is capable of listening further distances one of the interesting factors about submarine life is the forward crew and after crew would compete who could reload a torpedo faster. it was back in those days they had a -- they're mechanical advantage was block and tackle which now days we have hydraulic system s systems so the guy had to be strong to move these torpedoes. this is not live now, this is the match 14 21 feet long, 21 inches in diameter and weighs approximately 3500 pounds loaded. it has two speeds. it's a slow speed it will go 36 knots for a distance of four miles. on high speed settings she'l